


Therapy

by Ellie226



Series: Mark/El [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Play, Cutting, Daddy Kink, F/M, Spanking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-04-13
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:24:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 53,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellie226/pseuds/Ellie226
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Getting better is a process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the Mark/El universe, intended to be read after Scars. Please be warned, this story contains triggers for childhood sexual abuse, self-injury, and suicidal thoughts.
> 
> These stories are not quite the light and fluffy Glee fics that are also posted here. You've been warned.

Therapy was hard. I hated it. I left every session upset, wanting to cut even more than before I went. So that’s why Daddy came with me. Twice a week every week. Sometimes he sat in the lobby, reading a magazine or looking at paperwork. Other times he came into the office with me. But he was there every week.

I didn’t want to do this. It hurt; talking about what happened and letting it be about me instead of a story I told.

And when it was over, he’d force me to do something. I hated that almost as much as therapy. Having to go out in public and pretend like I hadn’t just ripped open all of my old scars and laid them out for a stranger.

I know he was trying. He specifically did the stuff that he knew I usually loved. My favorite restaurant for mac and cheese and pumpkin cheesecake. The little independent bookstore that cost three times as much as Barnes and Noble but had the random cat wandering around. We went to Lush, which had been one of my favorite things to do, and he bought me bath bombs and bubble bars for nights when he thought a soak in the bath would help me relax. The cider mill for doughnuts or downtown to walk along the river with hot chocolate. They were all places that I loved, but I felt like I was sleepwalking. I couldn’t feel any of the joy that I had associated with my favorite things.

I hated it. I hated Mark for forcing me to do this. I hurt; I hurt so much more than before. It hurt as badly as it had when it first started, maybe worse. Because when he had hurt me, I was a little girl; I knew it felt bad, but I didn’t understand what was happening really. Now, it was all the same pain, but I was old enough and smart enough to understand.

I understood what it meant. What that man had taken from me. And there were days that I hated him for it, which was something I had never wanted. I had always felt secretly superior; he had hurt me, but he hadn’t changed who I was. I was the girl who could have empathy for someone who hurt me that badly. He took everything else, but not my ability to feel sorrow for others. And that made me hate him more. It was the one thing I had left from before, and he managed to steal that too.

The therapist said I had been anesthetizing myself, when I wasn’t denying that it happened, and that was why it hurt so badly now. I had spent years repressing it; the only time I even thought about what he had done to me, how he had hurt me, was when I was gouging lines in my arms. And even then, I blamed myself.

I didn’t understand why that made it easier. She said that as long as I blamed myself, it helped to keep some of the trauma at bay. If I caused it, I deserved it. And if I deserved it, then I didn’t have to worry about it happening again. I just had to be better, and then no one would hurt me again.

And when I failed, when I should be better, I hurt myself. An exchange, a barter with God or Fate or whatever it was that had failed to keep me safe before. I would do this thing, and then nobody would have to hurt me. It was a preemptive punishment.

Which made sense. I am a social worker after all; I understand basic trauma theory as well as common beliefs about self-injuring and the overall behavior patterns of victims. It was academic; I had learned it and it had been easy because I could discuss it clinically. Now that I had to talk about me...Daddy wouldn’t let me separate from it. It wasn’t a case study, it was what happened to me. It wasn’t behavior patterns, it was what I did. I hated that. I had always learned this stuff because of other people. I didn’t want to be them; I wasn’t a victim.

Over time, Daddy started spending more sessions with us. It was easier, having him there. The last ten minutes, we would talk with about the work we had done, and then she would tell me what she wanted me to do between sessions.

The sessions that Daddy came in, I always finished the homework. When I was by myself, I conveniently forgot. I didn’t want the homework. I would go to therapy because he insisted, but I wanted to pretend that nothing was happening the other five days a week.

It was a lot like what I had always done. Close your eyes, make a wish, and go someplace else. Except now, instead of the grey room where nothing could touch me, I immersed myself in work and Daddy.

But once he started participating every time, that was over. He pushed and pulled and forced, and I had to do the projects. The collages and the journal entries and the art therapy. Stuff that I routinely encouraged clients to do; I felt like a monster when I realized what it was like. I encouraged other people to do this to themselves, and I would have gladly slit my wrists if he would just leave me alone long enough. Anything was better than this. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. There was no end of the tunnel.

And then, it started to get better. So slowly, I didn’t even realize it. But I realized one day that I had managed to write a paragraph in a report for a sexual abuse case without feeling his hands on me. And then I made it through a class; I talked to potential families about the hygiene issues of sexual trauma victims, and I didn’t have to go home and shower.

It wasn’t linear. It was one step forward and two steps back. For every minute I spent functioning, there were five that I was talking myself out of a panic attack. But slowly, it got better.

I got to the point that Daddy could touch my feet without me tensing. His hand ghosting over my stomach wasn’t cause for me to kick out in a panic. He could wear white tee-shirts and I could still let him hug because I knew that he was safe. The first day I got through without panicking, he made waffles for dinner to celebrate; He made a big deal about every milestone.

As I felt safer, I could talk more. I could tell more about what happened. It still hurt, but it was a more manageable pain. Therapy got easier. I hated going still, but I was ready to do the work.

I would walk into her office, and I would sit in my usual spot. Curled tightly into myself, I forced the words out that I had held back so long.

And then one day, she said the thing that I couldn’t do. I think she knew how hard it would be because it was one of the sessions that she asked Daddy to stay in with us for the entire time.

“Eleanor, I think it’s time to discuss telling your parents what happened.”

It was my hard limit. The thing I had told them I couldn’t, that I wouldn’t do. Wasn’t it enough that I had to live with it? Did I have to put everyone else through it too?

She said that my attacker had probably planted that particular idea; the assault was a secret. Telling other people was a mistake; I was a burden. We had worked hard together stripping that thought down.

The abuse was not my fault. It should not be a secret; safe people did not want me to keep secrets that hurt. It could be private, but it was not my shame to carry. She said that people who loved me would want to know so they could help.

“I can’t,” I wouldn’t make eye contact with either of them, and my voice sounded strange.

“You can Eleanor. I know it’s hard. I recognize that. But I also think that you aren’t going to be able to heal until you tell them. We need to talk about why it scares you so much and set a deadline for when it’s going to happen. You’re holding onto a lot of guilt and shame, and I think you need to see that it’s misplaced. Nobody blames you for this.”

I was trembling badly, my muscles tensed, and I shook my head, unable to stop. “I can’t. No. I can’t do that.”

I felt Mark’s arms pulling at me; I was gasping for air. He pulled my back to his chest, wrapping both arms protectively around my body. “In and out Sweetheart. You can breathe.”

“I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.” I was rocking myself back and forth, and I felt him tighten his grip, forcing me to stop.

“Breathe Baby,” he inhaled and exhaled, “with me. You’re okay Just match my breaths. Deep breath in. Good girl.”

I forced myself to listen to him, willed my lungs to cooperate. When I had calmed down enough to focus on something other than getting oxygen, I started to listen to their conversation.

“And how often is this happening?”

“Not that much anymore. When we first started coming it was a couple times a day. Now, maybe twice a month? It’s gotten a lot better.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here.”

I could feel Daddy starting to say something, but she beat him to it. “I’m sorry Eleanor. I was just trying to figure out if these attacks are common.”

“No. Not anymore,” I wanted to rock again, but Daddy hadn’t let me go yet. “I’m okay Mark. You can let go now.”

He released me, albeit reluctantly, and I went back to my normal spot on the couch, facing him, with my arms wrapped tightly around my knees. I rocked a little, but I tried to keep it together enough that it wasn’t too obvious.

“And how do you normally respond?”

“Pretty much like that. We handle it,” I could hear a note of defensiveness in my voice.

“Hey, she’s trying to help,” Daddy reached out and rested his hand on my leg. Turning to her, he said, “the first time it was kind of just necessary. She was hurting herself, and I grabbed her to keep her safe. It just became the way we dealt with it. El says it’s something about deep pressure? She said it works well with kids with sensory issues.”

“It does. It can help reduce sensory overload for people who have trouble processing a lot of stimuli. Eleanor, what do you do when Mark’s not around?”

“Cope,” I could hear myself developing a clear tone.

“Eleanor!” There was censure in Mark’s voice now.

“Sorry,” I blushed. “I don’t know. I can normally keep it together in public, and I’m not really by myself at home anymore.”

“Why is that?”

I looked at her, puzzled. “Why is what?”

“Why aren’t you home alone?”

Daddy stepped in now to rescue me. “We talked about it. It just seemed like the best short-term solution while we’re getting through this.”

“And what are you going to do when you can’t be with Mark?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Daddy’s voice was calm, pleasant but clearly not open to changing how we were handling things, “to begin with we were just trying to get minute to minute. Now, she’s fine for hours. And eventually, she won’t need me to be there.”

I chafed my arms when he said that. We had discussed this. It made me nervous to need him this much.

“That’s not a viable long-term plan, we ne-”

Mark cut her off then, “What we’re doing is working for us right now. When and if it becomes an issue, we’ll deal with it.”

“Eleanor, how do you feel about that?”

“It was never safe before,” I told her. “Knowing Mark’s there has made it possible for me to talk about it.”

She looked at her watch. This was clearly not the way she planned on ending the session, but it was time to go.

“Alright, Eleanor, I’ll see you next Tuesday. I’d like you to write in your journal about what would happen if you told your parents. Whatever you think might happen, write about it, and we’ll address it in your next session. Okay?”

I nodded at that. I would write hundreds of pages for her if that’s what she wanted, but I wasn’t going to tell them.

When we got out to the car, Daddy opened my door and helped me buckle myself, “You okay Princess?”

“I don’t like her.”

He nodded at that, “I know,” he walked around the car and got in, closing the doors and locking them.

“Do you need anything Princess? Or do you just want to get dinner?”

“Dinner,” I looked out the window.

“What do you want to eat?”

I shrugged, pulling my feet up to my chest and biting at my lower lip.

“Don’t do that Baby,” he reached over, running his thumb gently across the marks left by my teeth. “Where should we go?”

“I don’t care,” I was resting my head against my knees, and my voice was muffled.

“Well, that doesn’t actually work for me El. Come on, sit up like a big girl and tell me where you want to go.”

I forced myself to look at him. “But I really don’t care. Please, can’t we just go home?”

“Nope. Do you want to go to the diner or to that Italian place?”

I closed my eyes, thinking for a minute. I wanted nothing more than to curl up by myself somewhere, and he wouldn’t let me.

“You need to talk to me please,” his voice sounded perfectly pleasant, but I really wanted to throw something at him.

“Grilled cheese,” I mumbled, resting my face against my knees again.

“Okay. Please put your feet down so we can go.”

I sighed as I moved. I felt too vulnerable right now; pressing into myself helped. He reached over and took one of my hands as he drove. “What should we do after dinner?”

“Daddy, I’m really tired. Please, can’t we just go home?” I could hear myself begging.

“What do you want to do at home?”

“Nothing. I just want to go home,” I could feel myself tearing up again. I didn’t want to do this with him.

“No then. We’re going to get dinner, and then we’ll go do something fun.”

I scowled at that, “I just want to go home,” I whined, and then I experimentally swung my foot at the dashboard.

“Ouch!” I protested, rubbing at the spot that Daddy had swatted.

“You know better than to kick. We’re going to dinner El; if I have to find someplace quiet to spank you first, that’s perfectly alright. What would you like to do after dinner?”

“I don’t care,” I crossed my arms and stared out the window.

Daddy sighed at that. I knew that this was hard on him too, but I just didn’t have the energy to make it any easier. “I’ll make a deal with you. Okay?”

I looked at him when he said that. Daddy wasn’t big on deals typically.

“We can go home after dinner, but we have to do something that isn’t you brooding.”

“Movie?” my voice was hopeful. My television privileges had been revoked at the beginning of the week when Daddy caught me out of bed at 2:00 AM watching made for TV movies. But maybe he had forgotten...

“Nope. No TV until this weekend; you know that. Do you want to color with me? Or we could play with your toys.”

I thought for a minute, “will you read to me?”

“We can read if you want to Princess, but that means we have to go to the bookstore first.”

I made a face. “I don’t want to.”

“Then pick something else Princess. Do you want to take a long bath? I got you bath crayons.”

“Fine,” I didn’t care; I didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

So that’s what we did. We went and got dinner, and then went home. I liked taking baths, although our new routine was a little different from the old “light candles and listen to iPod” baths that I took before.

I colored pictures on the wall. Daddy washed my hair, and we talked about something other than therapy. When we were done, Daddy rubbed lotion into my arms and legs and then got my nightgown on. It was still only 9:00.

He pulled me into the chair to cuddle; it was quickly becoming his default response to not knowing what to do with me.

“Are you going to do your homework after work tomorrow, or do you want to start now?” his voice was casual, but he knew the question was loaded.

I shook my head no.

“Princess, that wasn’t a yes or no question. After work or now?”

“I don’t want to Daddy.”

“I understand that, but it’s not optional. So what can we do to make this easier?”

I shrugged, leaning against him and staring at the wall.

“Why don’t we talk about it now Princess; then we won’t have to worry about it all night.”

“I don’t want to,” I whined a little and drummed my feet against the chair.

“Don’t kick the chair,” he said, lightly tapping my bottom. “You don’t have to write right now. Let’s just talk about it.”

“I’m not telling them Daddy.”

“That’s not what we’re talking about right now. We’re talking about what would happen if you did tell them.”

“I don’t know, and it isn’t important because it’s never going to happen.”

“Eleanor, we aren’t debating whether to tell them; I want to talk with you about what you think would happen.”

“I want up,” as I said it, I tried to push off of his lap.

“No Baby.”

“I’ll talk about it Daddy,” I said, my hands rubbing hard, back and forth on my thighs “I just don’t want you touching me while I do. Please?” I couldn’t stand the feeling of his hands on me when I had to talk about this.

Daddy sighed at that, but then he helped me up. I quickly walked over to the bed, and curled up, facing away from him. I pulled Stella to my chest and hugged her hard against me.

“Alright Princess,” I felt the bed dip as Daddy sat down next to me, “what do you think would happen?”

“They won’t believe me.”

“Okay, and what would that mean?”

“They’ll think I made it up. Or that I’m remembering something wrong. I really don’t want to talk about this right now.”

“I know you don’t Princess. So what’s the worst thing that happens if they don’t believe you?”

“I don’t know. I just can’t. I can’t do it.” I rolled half-way over so I could look at him. “I do everything else. ‘Eleanor go to therapy, Eleanor do the homework. Eleanor take your mind-altering substances...’it’s not fair. I hate it. I told you, just this one thing. I’ll do everything else, but I won’t tell them. I can’t. It’s too much.” I turned away from him again and began rocking my body, curled as tightly into myself as I could get. I could feel my breathing becoming less regular.

His hand rested gently on my shoulder, and I tensed. “Don’t touch,” my voice was shrill.

He kept his hand where it was. “You know I’m not going to hurt you. I need you to take a deep breath. It’s okay; we’re at home; you’re safe.”

I jerked my body away from him, rolling gracelessly to the floor and then moving to the corner. Sitting so I could face him, I tried to make myself as small as possible, wrapped around Stella. “I’m not going to tell them.”

“El, we’re not talking about whether you’re going to or not right now. I promise that we won’t do it until you’re ready. But we need to figure out why you’re so scared to tell them so we can talk about what’s a rational concern and what’s still you being little.” He got up and walked slowly over to the foot of the bed. Sliding down to the floor, he watched me carefully from about 10 feet away.

“So, they think you made it up, what happens then?”

I shook my head no at that, then pushed my forehead against my knees hard. I wasn’t here. This wasn’t happening. I couldn’t do this. God, I wanted to rake my nails across my face. Maybe if I did that, people would leave me alone. It’s not like I’m pretty anyway, but crazy self-induced scars are so rarely a turn-on to others.

I tried to remember the breathing exercises we had practiced for when I felt like this, but I could feel myself being pulled inexorably toward a panic attack. I clenched my hands into fists, feeling a bit of tugging from the hairs at the base of my skull. “No no no no no no no no no,” I couldn’t remember the words I wanted after that.

I finally managed to remember another word to use, and I forced myself to look up at him. “Please?” I was crying now, and I wanted to slice open my arms. You never let other people see you cry. Weakness was like chum in the water, an invitation for pain.

“Okay Baby. We don’t have to talk about it anymore; we’re done for the night. I’m going to come over to you now. Do you understand what I’m saying?” his voice was calm.

“I just need you-No, don’t do that.” I was rapidly becoming hysterical, and I needed to pull it together.

“El, listen to Daddy: I’m not going to hurt you; you know that. I just want to be a little bit closer so we can breathe together. It’ll help you Princess,” he paused for a moment, then continued. “So, I’m going to very slowly move toward you. Keep your head up so you can watch me.” He watched, making sure I complied, then began to cross the space between us. “See how I’m low to the ground Sweetheart? I’m not big and scary; it’s just me. I’m not going to stand up; we can both stay down here until you’re ready.”

I was shaking, but I kept my eyes on him. He slowly shuffled toward me, keeping a close watch on my face. “See, I’m almost there,” he stopped when he was still about 18 inches away.

“I want you to sit with me. Would it be easier if I help you to do that, or do you think it’s less scary if you move toward me now?”

I shook my head no, pressing my back to the wall.

“No, you’re going to sit with me. Do you need me to help?” His voice was matter of fact.

I curled tighter, pressing my face to my knees. I’m not here. I’m not in this room with anyone else. I’m in the grey room. There aren’t any doors or windows, and I’m the only one here.

His voice was insistent, breaking through my thoughts. “Alright Princess. You can’t move yourself right now, so I’m coming a little bit closer,” I could hear his jeans rubbing against the floor as he shifted himself. “Now I’m right next to you, and I’m going to touch your arm,” his hands were on one of my arms and I tried to make myself disappear. Small small. You don’t have to hurt me.

“Okay Baby. I’m going to help you into my lap now. We’re okay. Nobody’s going to get hurt,” his hands were gentle as they forced my body up into his lap, and I felt him shifting his own body so his back was to my corner.

“See, that wasn’t so bad. We’re sitting together, and we’re facing out so we know nothing else is here.” His hands were gently rubbing my arms as he spoke. “Can you take a deep breath in for me Sweetheart?”

I was shaking badly now, my teeth chattering, but I managed to take a shuddering breath in, and then release it.

“Good girl. One more for me.”

I complied as best I could.

“Can you feel my heartbeat against your back?”

I nodded.

“That’s my girl. I want you to concentrate on that. Okay? We’re fine. You can breathe. We’re safe here.” His hands continued gently rubbing up and down my arms. I hadn’t realized they were cold.

I tried to focus on his heart. It meant I couldn’t rock because I needed to keep my back pressed to his chest. I wanted to rock; deep breath in, and then let it out. It was fine. We were going to be fine. Deep breath. This room was safe. Our home was safe. Daddy was safe. We’re okay. I slowly felt my own heartbeat returning to normal. My jaw was still clenched tightly, but I didn’t feel light-headed anymore.

“Doing better Princess?”

“Two in one night. Not good.” Now that I was coming down, I was acutely aware of what had just happened; we hadn’t had two close together in over a month.

“Two in one night and we handled both of them without you hurting yourself or me. I think that’s pretty good.”

“I can’t tell them Daddy,” my voice sounded so little.

“El, I want you to really think about this. Did I say you had to tell them?”

I shook my head no, “but Dr. Ayers wants me to Daddy, and I know you’re just trying to get me used to the idea. And I can’t Daddy.”

“Stop jumping three steps ahead and focus on where we are right now. We’re not going to tell them right now. Maybe we will later. But for right now, we just want to figure out why it scares you so much.”

“She wants me to tell them.” I could feel my chest tightening again, and I tried to focus on breathing slowly.

“When you’re ready, we’ll tell. You aren’t ready right now Princess, and that’s okay.”

I began rubbing my hands on my thighs as hard as I could. “She wants me to tell them,” I repeated.

“That doesn’t matter,” his voice was calm, even. He captured my hands and held them. “She’s your therapist; she’s helping us right now, but she’s not in charge. I’m saying we’re not going to do anything that’s too scary or big for us to handle. I promise that we won’t.”

“It’s all scary and big,” my voice was ragged, and I was barely holding back tears.

“It is. But we’ve managed thus far, and we’ll keep getting through it. Remember, you thought you wouldn’t be able to do a lot of stuff, and we’ve gotten through it. Before, you wouldn’t have been able to sit on my lap and calm yourself down. And last week I touched your stomach without you panicking. It’s getting better.”

I turned myself so I could press my face to his chest. “Don’t make me tell them.”

“Okay. Shhhhh,” he hugged me and rubbed my back. “We’re not going to tell them right now.”

“Never,” I pushed into him, trying to burrow into his chest, “not ever.”

“Okay Princess. We’re okay. I’m not asking you to tell; I just want us to talk about what would happen if we did.”

I shook my head no. “I don’t want to see Dr. Ayers anymore.”

“El, that isn’t going to fix anything. You need to talk with a therapist.”

I sniffled. “I don’t like it. She wants me to tell, and I can’t Daddy. It’s too hard.”

“Does it matter what Dr. Ayers wants?”

“Yes. You’re going to make me do it ‘cause she says it’s a good idea.”

“Whose in charge Baby? Me or Dr. Ayers?”

“You.”

“Alright, and if I’m in charge, and I’m saying we won’t do it ‘till you’re ready, what does that mean?”

“We won’t do it till I’m ready...but what I’m never ready Daddy?”

“Then we never do it. But I think you will be eventually. And we don’t have to rush. Can we get into bed Princess? I’m getting kind of stiff.”

I tensed at that. “Are the doors locked?”

“Yes. Do you want to come downstairs with me so we can check again?”

I nodded, and he helped me stand up. Picking me up, he carried Stella and me around the house, double-checking the doors and windows. “See, nobody’s getting in.”

I felt myself relax a little at that, and then a bit more once we got into the bedroom and he locked that door as well. “We’re safe. Our bedroom is always safe, but we know that nobody is getting in here tonight. Let’s get into bed, and we can talk some more.”

I clung to him, not wanting to be put down or let him go. When we were in bed, I curled myself tightly against his body. I didn’t want to have to look at his face while we talked. He stroked my hair as he began talking again.

“It must be scary, thinking you’re going to tell this big secret.”

I nodded slowly, my thumb going up to my mouth.

“I can see that. You’ve spent a long time hiding it.”

“Not ‘llowed to talk about it.”

“Who says you aren’t allowed to talk about it Princess?”

“It’s a secret. If I tell people, they’ll be mad.”

“Who will they be mad at?”

“Me. I shouldn’t make him do this stuff to me. He doesn’t hurt anybody else; just me. Because I’m bad.”

“What did you do to make him hurt you?”

I shrug at this. I had never been entirely clear what my crime was, but I knew it had to be awful. “I was bad.”

“What about your client El? The little girl you told me about. What did she do to make her Daddy hurt her?”

I shook my head at that. “Nothing. Her Daddy shouldn’t have hurt her. He’s going to jail.”

“Is there anything she could have done that would have made it okay for her Daddy to hurt her?”

“No, but I’m bad. It’s different. I deserve it. She’s just little Daddy. It wasn’t okay.”

“You were little when this happened. What did you do to deserve it?”

“I was bad.” I was getting frustrated with him. It was all very clear. I was the only one he hurt. So I must have done something wrong.

“Princess, I’m confused. What is something bad enough to make anyone deserve what happened to you?”

“I’m just bad. That’s why he hurt me. I tried to be good, but I couldn’t be.”

“Why do you think that though Sweetheart? Did he tell you that you were bad?”

I nodded. “Uh huh. I’m bad; he tried to make sure I’d be good, but it didn’t work.”

He fell silent, and I focused on his heartbeat. We had never talked about it like this before; Daddy hadn’t known that it was my fault.

After several minutes of lying there without talking, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Are you mad at me?”

“I am never ever mad at you. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m mad that this happened,” he was choosing his words carefully. “It makes me sad that he hurt you like that.”

“I tried really really hard to be good so he wouldn’t.”

“El, I’m still having some trouble with that. Why do you think it was your fault?”

“Because I’m the only one he hurt. If he had hurt other kids, then it would be because he was doing bad stuff. But he just hurt me. So I must have done something wrong.” It was very clear. “But I’m good most of the time now. Just sometimes I’m bad.”

“No Princess, that’s not true,” I tensed at this, but he went on. “You aren’t ever bad any of the time. You’re always good.”

He was wrong, “I try harder now. Before, I was bad lots. But now I’m good lots and only a little bad.”

“What do you do that’s bad now?”

“I got out of bed and watched movies. That’s not allowed. And I yell at you sometimes. And I get upset and don’t listen. And sometimes I hit you when I’m mad and that’s really really bad.” I went through all of the things that I’d done lately, then yawned, tired.

“You ready to turn out the lights?” he asked.

I nodded, satisfied that he had finally realized what I was saying was true. He leaned to turn off the lamp, and then lay back down. “Everyone does bad stuff sometimes El.”

“I know. I’m just a lot badder, but it’s okay because I’m trying really hard to be good. I’ll do better.”

“We’ll talk about it more tomorrow. Okay?”

I nodded, face pressed to his side, sucking my thumb as I slowly fell asleep.

When I woke up an hour later, I felt wide awake, like it was morning already. I’d had a nightmare. I’d let Daddy in on the secret. I was stupid; I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. Why on Earth would he want to stay now that he knew? It had been my fault; I was dirty and bad.

I felt my breathing getting shallow, and I slowly and carefully moved off the mattress, away from Daddy. I could take care of this. It wasn’t a problem.

Stealing quietly to the bathroom, I shut and locked the door. At first, I turned the light on, but then I turned it back off. I shouldn’t be stupid; the light might wake him up. I didn’t need to be inconsiderate and wake him on top of everything else. Besides, I couldn’t see in the dark, and the idea of looking at myself made me feel sick. I wanted to smash the mirror and carve up my face, but I wasn’t supposed to hurt myself anymore.

I blindly felt around, turning on the shower and shucking my pajamas. I folded them neatly and placed them on the top of the hamper. It was important to be tidy. Then I climbed into the shower and closed the curtain.

Sitting on the bottom of the bathtub, I closed my eyes and just let the water run over me. After a few minutes, I turned the water a bit hotter, and then I felt for the washcloth. I always left everything in exactly the same spot; it wasn’t hard to find it along with the soap. Rubbing the soap furiously against the washcloth, I waited until it felt sudsy, and then I started.

I scrubbed myself as hard as I could. My arms and legs burned from the friction, but I wouldn’t stop. Once I thought I might be clean enough, I rubbed more soap into the washcloth. I leaned over to turn the water on even hotter. If I had been able to see, I knew I would be able to watch my skin reddening from the heat alone. Hot water was the only way to really get anything clean.

Leaning back, I opened my legs to the spray and began to scour between them, allowing the hot water and soap to mingle. My flesh felt abraded, raw, but I couldn’t stop. I had to wash myself until I was clean.

I don’t know how long I did that, re-soaping the cloth and then scrubbing at my skin. I made sure that I rubbed everywhere, but I always returned to between my legs, forcing the washcloth against the skin as hard as I could. We have a perpetual water heater; I could have stayed in there for days.

It didn’t matter. Even as I scoured myself, I knew I would never be clean enough. Bad. Dirty. Whore. I felt like the words had been tattooed on my body. There wasn’t enough soap or hot water to wash them off. I could have boiled the flesh from my bones, and the words would have been carved across my rib cage. Even if I killed myself, they would be written on my soul; indelible.

I was so involved with what I was doing that I didn’t hear him pick the lock or even notice the light turn on. Or Daddy pushing aside the shower curtain.

“Oh God. El. Eleanor. Stop it.” I did hear his voice, but it seemed far away. I didn’t register anything until I felt the water turn to ice and then shut off. Then his hands reached down and grabbed the washcloth away from me.

It seemed reasonable. The washcloth was Egyptian cotton. I shouldn’t ruin it; I was making it dirty. I returned to my legs, rubbing hard as I could. I used my nails to scrape as I did it.

“Eleanor. Eleanor, stop,” his hands were trying to grab at mine, but I couldn’t stop. Didn’t he see I needed to do this?

I felt him climbing into the bathtub behind me and pulling me up against him. Grabbing both of my arms, he wrapped them across my chest and held my hands down.

“Stop. Stop it. I’m not clean. Lemme go. I need to wash myself.” I tried to pull away from him, but he had a good grip on me.

“You’re clean enough. You’ve rubbed the skin off of yourself. I need you to calm down,” his voice was strained as he moved with me, preventing me from pulling my arms free.

“Not clean not clean not clean so dirty let me go let me go why won’t you just let me go,” I whimpered. I could feel myself being pulled out of the grey room; I wanted to stay.

“Ow,” I whimpered. His pajama pants felt rough against my skin.

“I’ve got you. If I let you go, do you think you can be safe?”

I nodded.

“I need to hear you say it Princess.”

“I’m safe.”

“You aren’t going to hurt yourself anymore tonight?”

“I wasn’t hurting myself. I was dirty.”

“If I let you go, I need to know that you’re going to sit still and not do anything until I tell you to. Can you do that?”

I nodded, breathing raggedly, as I felt him slowly and carefully releasing my arms, and then moving away from me. He stepped out of the tub. He was doing his normal slow movements that he used when he thought I was going to break.

“There’s my girl. I need you to stand up so we can go into the bedroom. I need to make a phone call. Do you need help?”

I started to stand up and realized I couldn’t. My legs felt limp. Grabbing me under the arms, he hauled me up. He was trying to be gentle, but every movement hurt.

He helped me out of the tub and onto the mat, holding me for a minute to make sure I could stand up, and then began rummaging around in the cupboard. I wasn’t back enough to want to watch yet, but after a moment, I felt soft flannel draping around my shoulders.

“I’m thinking this will be easiest right now. You doing okay Princess?” his voice was starting to take on a more normal tone. I nodded once.

“Okay then. I need you to come with me into the bedroom. Do you want to sit on the chair or should I help you to the bed?” he looked at me expectantly.

“Floor.” I shouldn’t touch anything. The floor was wood; he could scrub it later when I left.

“That wasn’t an option Princess. Do you want the bed or the chair?”

“Chair.”

Gently putting an arm around my shoulder, he led me into the bedroom and helped me sit on the chair, kneeling in front of me, he forced me to make eye contact. “I need to get my phone from the nightstand. You need to sit here and not move.”

I nodded again. He stood up slowly and moved to the nightstand, keeping his eyes on me the entire way. Once he retrieved the phone, he came back and sat on the ottoman in front of me. He began dialing a number.

“What are you doing?” my voice was croaky. I didn’t want him telling everyone this. I didn’t want anyone to know.

“I’m calling my mom. I need to know what we should do for you tonight.”

“No!” I didn’t want his mother to know about this. I wanted her to like me; now she would know I was some sort of burdensome freak to her son.

“Yes El. She’s a nurse. I need to know how to handle what happened tonight. I don’t want to hurt you any more.”

“I’m fine,” my voice was insistent, but he kept dialing. “No Mark. I don’t want her to know.” I tried to reach out and grab the phone, but he calmly twisted away and brought it up to his ear.

He waited a minute, and then started talking, even as I sat in the chair whining wordlessly. “Hey Beth, go wake up Mom. Tell her everything’s fine, but I’ve got a little situation I need to know what to do with.”

Great. He’d gotten his sister first. I didn’t want everyone to know. I tried to reach for the phone again, but he caught both of my hands and held them, shooting me a warning look.

“Hey Mom. Sorry to wake you up. No, everything’s fine.”

I tuned him out. I didn’t want to hear him tell her; he was ignoring how bad I was now, but she would know. When he let my hands go, I began picking at my cuticles. I watched the blood well, detached, until he grabbed my hands again. He picked me up calmly and held me, my back to his chest, one arm wrapped protectively around my torso.

I rocked slightly in his arms, and he let me. I could hear him talking, but I wanted his voice to be far away again. I focused on rocking. Back and forth. I ran through a list in my head: everything I knew about rocking. Rocking triggered a parasympathetic response. It was a common way of soothing infants and small children. People who had suffered trauma often used rocking as a form of self-soothing. It was similar to deep pressure in helping to handle excess stimuli.

I could feel Daddy rocking with me, and I tried to block him out. I didn’t want to feel him at all. I tried to focus on my lecture. Rocking. It mimicked the motion that fetuses experienced in utero as their mothers walked. I tried to think of something else. I didn’t want to feel Daddy or hear his conversation. Something about children with attachment problems. I couldn’t remember. Why couldn’t I remember?

Daddy’s arms tightened around me, and he forced me to stop rocking. He was murmuring in my ear. I tried to not listen, but his voice was like a gnat, buzzing buzzing, insistent.

“Shhhh. We’re okay. We need to stand up now and go back into the bathroom. I’m going to run a bath. I have to make sure that you have all the soap washed off. We’re going to stand up,” as he told me, he moved, walking toward the bathroom. When we got there, he had me sit down on the floor while he ran the water.

“I’m going to help you up, and then you’re going to step into the tub.” His hands were gentle, but I burned. The water was cool; it felt good, but it wasn’t good. It wasn’t hot enough to really clean anything.

Daddy grabbed a new washcloth and put it under water. Once it was saturated, he lifted it up and carefully squeezed water onto my shoulders, making sure not to touch my skin with anything other than the water. He repeated the motion, calmly moving me in order to reach everywhere, and narrating the process. When he went to touch me between my legs, I clamped them shut.

“Sweetheart, I need to make sure you don’t have any soap left on your skin. It’ll burn you if we don’t get it off.”

Good. I wanted it to burn me. I wouldn’t move my legs. If I burned off my skin, maybe I could stop feeling his hands roam across my body.

“El, I don’t want to force you, but I’m worried if I let you do it you’re going to scrub again. Your skin is already raw. I need you to cooperate please.”

“Soap burns the skin because it’s basic,” calm and clear. Facts were so much better; I knew what I was doing, and if I could show him that I wasn’t being emotional he would see that.

“That’s right, it does. I don’t want you to have chemical burns. That’s why I need to make sure we got all of the soap off before you get out of the bathtub.”

“I want it to burn.” My voice was calm. I did. I wanted to burn off the flesh everywhere I had felt him touch me. I was filthy.

“I understand that, but I don’t want your skin any more damaged. So please open up your legs so I can make sure you’re okay.”

I ignored him, dragging my fingers through the water. It wasn’t hot enough, but when I reached for the hot water tap he blocked my hand.

“Eleanor, if you don’t listen, I’m going to call 911. I’ll have the paramedics come, and they will put you in a psych ward on a 72 hour hold. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

“I’m not crazy.”

“I know you’re not crazy.”

“You can’t fix me, I fell off the wall and it doesn’t matter what you do nobody can put me back together.” I felt loopy, distant like I was watching someone else.

“You’re not broken, and I’m not trying to fix you. You’re just really sad and angry right now, and you’re not thinking. Please El, I don’t want to call 911. Don’t force my hand here Princess.”

“I don’t want you touching me there.” Didn’t he understand how dirty I was? I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, but I was never clean.

“I know that.”

I sighed and leaned against the sloping back of the tub, letting my knees drift apart. “You have to wash your hands afterward. With hot water, not this water.”

His hands were gentle as he rinsed with the stupid cold water that was never going to make me clean enough. “Can you tell me what you were thinking?”

“I wasn’t clean. You never make the water hot enough.”

“You were clean Princess. You took a bath tonight, and we used soap and warm water just like always.”

“No, I was dirty. I’m always dirty,” I watched through half-closed eyes as he finished, gently closing my knees again.

“All done, thank you for letting me do that.”

“You need to wash your hands.”

“They’re clean. It’s time to get out.”

“Wash your hands. They’re dirty now from touching me. You have to use hot water and scrub.” I was contaminated. He shouldn’t touch me.

“My hands are clean Eleanor. And I’m pretty sure there’s no part of you that was dirty given how hot that shower was. Why Baby? Why did you do this tonight? Were you upset because of what we talked about earlier?”

“I was dirty.”

He reached for one of my arms and helped me stand up. Dripping, I waited as he grabbed a clean bath sheet and began gently patting my skin. He should be rubbing harder, but when I tried to grab the towel to do it myself, he wouldn’t let me.

Once he had me dry, we walked silently to the bedroom and he had me lay on the bed. Grabbing a small tube of something, he began gently manipulating my body, lifting one arm and then the other. Every once in a while, he would carefully rub something on my skin. It stung.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s antibiotic ointment. I’m worried you’re going to get infections from some of these.”

“I wouldn’t if you would have let me finish.”

“You can’t do that again El. Your skin is rubbed raw. This wasn’t okay.”

“I had to.”

“No, you didn’t. If you got anxious, you should have woken me up.”

“I wasn’t anxious; I was dirty.”

“You’re going to be sore in the morning Baby.” He calmly capped the tube and then looked at me.

“I need to put this away and get something from the bathroom. I want you to sit here and not touch anything, including yourself. Understand?”

I nodded, but my hands were itching to gouge at myself. While I was thinking that, he came back to the bed. Helping me to sit back up, he carefully slid an oversized tee shirt over my head, and then he handed me a couple of pills and a glass of water.

“What are these?”

“Medicine. Go on, swallow.”

I obediently did as he asked, and then I opened my mouth up so he could see they were gone. Medicine couldn’t fix what was wrong with me. He should make me drink bleach.

“Good girl. Come on, lay down.” He gently pulled the covers up over me, and then he moved the rocking chair next to my side of the bed. I watched him closely as he sat down.

“Sleep Baby.”

“You need to sleep too.” My eyes were getting heavy. He must have given me benadryl or something.

“I will. I’m just going to stay up until I’m sure you’re okay.”

That was a bad idea. He needed to rest. I wanted to tell him that, but it suddenly didn’t seem worth the effort. Feeling my eyes close, I slept.

When I woke up, he was on the phone again.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure Mom; she wasn’t in the bed when I woke up, and I heard the shower running. God, there was blood. She had rubbed her skin off in places and she was bleeding.” He paused for a minute, then realized my eyes were open. “I have to go. No, I’ll call later.”

I was watching him. He shouldn’t be telling everyone. It was a secret. I began rocking my body back and forth, trying to block everything out. Close your eyes, don’t look at anything. I wasn’t supposed to tell and now he knew and everyone was going to know and people would be so mad.

I didn’t even realize I was talking until I felt his hands on my face, “No what Princess?”

I looked at him again, forcing my eyes open. “What?”

“You keep saying no. No what?”

“You can’t let anyone know. It’s bad. I’m not supposed to talk about it,” I wrapped my arms around myself and rocked harder.

“We needed help last night El. I didn’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.”

“It was good. I needed to be clean.”

“It wasn’t good. Last night was very bad. You were already clean, and you know you’re not supposed to get out of bed without permission. You scared me.”

“You can hit me, if you want?”

“We don’t hit in this house,” his voice was patient. “And I’m not going to spank you this morning either. We need to talk about what happened.”

I shook my head at him. He should punish me. Reaching one hand up, I began rubbing it against my forehead, pressing as hard as I could.

“I scheduled an emergency session with Dr. Ayers. You need to get up and get dressed so we can go.”

I shook my head no. I didn’t want to go back there.

It didn’t matter, he took my hands and pulled me up. “Come on, you need to come into the bathroom with me while I shower.”

He led me into the bathroom, his hands gentle. I wish he would just hit me and get it over with. When he started the shower, he looked at me critically for a minute and then began removing my tee-shirt. I held still for him. If he wanted to make me cleaner, I wouldn’t object.

After stripping first me and then himself, he pulled the curtain aside and helped me into the tub. He positioned me away from the spray, and had me sit with my back against the back of the tub.

I watched cautiously as he bathed himself. The water was cool, and I wasn’t sure what he was doing. Maybe a really cold shower? It would be unpleasant, but maybe that was how he was going to punish me. Although, he was in the shower as well and that didn’t make a lot of sense...

He interrupted my thoughts, squatting next to me with a washcloth in his hand. He gently began wiping it across my face.

“I can do it,” I tried to tug it away from him.

“No.”

“Lemme do it,” I whined, grabbing the washcloth and not letting go.

He lightly smacked the back of my hand, “Eleanor. I can’t trust you to bathe yourself right now; I’m going to do it until you show me you can be safe.”

“You don’t do it right,” I complained.

He stood back up and turned off the water. “We need to get going if we’re going to make it to Dr. Ayers on time.”

“What about work?”

“We’re taking the day off.”

“I need to go to work. I can’t just take all of this time off.”

“No,” his voice was calm, and he began quickly toweling himself dry.

Stepping out onto the bath mat, I stomped my foot. “I need to.”

He turned to look at me, raising that one stupid eyebrow. I began twisting my hands together, tugging on my fingers.

“I need to go in Mark. I have to.”

“No Eleanor. And don’t stomp your foot.” He grabbed another towel and gently patted me dry. “Just because I’m not going to spank you right now doesn’t mean there aren’t other things that I can do to help you remember the rules.”

He led me back out to the bedroom and instructed me to sit on the bed. I didn’t want to.

“Sit,” his voice was even, but I could tell that he was getting frustrated.

“Why don’t you just spank me?” I asked him challengingly.

“Is that what’s this about?” he asked me, guiding me over and forcing me to sit on the bed. “Do you want a spanking?”

“No.” Getting spanked hurt; that was ridiculous.

He nodded at that, sitting next to me. “I think,” he said conversationally, “that you’re lying to me. I think that you want me to spank you. And I’m not entirely sure why, but I’m not going to. I can’t Princess, not until we talk about what happened last night; I think we need to figure out what made you decide to do that. If you want to push, I’m sure I can come up with something that works just as well.”

I looked down at my hands, wrapping the towel around myself more tightly.

Daddy leaned over, resting his hand on my cheek, “You don’t need to push to see where the line is El. It hasn’t changed. I just don’t want to spank you right now because I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Never stopped you before,” I said angrily.

“You know that’s not true. Getting spanked doesn’t feel good, but I’m not hurting you.” His voice was even as he spoke to me. “I’m not going anywhere Princess. You can’t make me mad enough to leave.”

“I’m not trying to,” I protested.

He stood up, walking to the dresser and pulling on jeans and a shirt. Bringing clothes over to the bed, he helped me into them.

“I’m not,” I repeated myself. Why wasn’t he responding?

He looked up from where he was kneeling, slipping on shoes. “Do you want your mouth washed out with soap?”

“You wouldn’t,” I tried to sound certain as I said it, but I wasn’t sure.

“I would. If you want to keep lying to me, we can go into the bathroom right now.” He stood up and held out his hand, “or, you can stop trying to bait me into punishing you and we can go now so we can get pancakes.” He looked at me steadily.

I took his hand and stood up. I didn’t want my mouth washed out. I wasn’t sure he would do it, but I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t. It was probably best to just do as he said.

I remained quiet as he drove to the diner near Dr. Ayers’ office. I didn’t want to eat. I picked at my pancakes, trying to buy time.

“Finish up Princess,” his voice was quiet, trying to not attract any attention.

“I really don’t want to go,” I kept my voice low, picking at the pancakes on my plate.

He reached across the table, taking my hand. “I know. Go ahead and eat some more so you’re not hungry during your session.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Two more bites,” he nodded at my plate as he said it, drinking his coffee. He put the cup down, “and you need to drink your juice. You can’t take the medication on an empty stomach.”

“I should just stop two bites before I want to; you always make me eat that many more anyway,” I said as I begrudgingly ate.

“That’s an idea. Juice too please.”

I sighed and drank the juice, swallowing my pill when he handed it over. Then I waited while Daddy paid the bill.

“You ready to go?”

I stood up and walked back to the car. When we got in, he started to drive the two blocks to Dr. Ayers’.

“I really really don’t want to go in Daddy,” my leg was bouncing up and down, and I had brought my right hand up to my mouth to gnaw on a cuticle.

“It’s just an hour. We’re going to go in and talk about what happened last night Princess. Then we can go home.” He reached over to grab my hand. “Don’t chew at yourself please.”

“I’m sorry I was bad. Please don’t make me go talk to her. Please?”

He parked the car and then turned to look at me. “El, this isn’t a punishment. We need to talk to her about what happened. Yesterday was bad Princess, we need to figure out what to do so it doesn’t happen again.”

I curled up on the seat, hiding my face in my arms. “It won’t. I’ll be good.”

“It’s not about being good; we’re going to talk with her so that you can be safe. Do you want me to stay in with you the entire time?”

“I don’t want to go.”

“I understand that, but that isn’t your decision. We’re going in to see Dr. Ayers. I can talk with her at the beginning or the end and let you have your session alone with her, or I can stay in the whole time. Which is better?”

“Stay,” my voice was muffled.

“Okay. I’ll stay in the whole time.”

“Promise.”

“I promise I’ll stay in there with you. Now come on, sit up like a big girl for me.”

I forced myself to sit up, and we got out of the car. Daddy held my hand while we walked in and waited in the lobby. Then Dr. Ayers came out.

“Eleanor. I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon. I heard you had some trouble last night?”

I nodded, not making eye contact.

“Why don’t you come back with me and we can talk about it.” As we stood up, she held out a hand. “Mark, I think it would be better if I talked with Eleanor privately first. You can come in once we’ve spoken about last night.”

I gripped Daddy’s hand so tight that I could feel his bones moving under the skin, and I pressed myself against his body.

“I told El I’d come in with her. She’s still upset.” Daddy’s voice was pleasant, and I relaxed a little. He said he’d come in. It was okay.

“I really think it would be best if we spoke alone first Eleanor,” Dr. Ayers kept her voice calm, but she was now pointedly ignoring Daddy and focusing on me.

I shook my head no at that. I wanted him with me.

Sighing, she ushered us into the back office and gestured to the chairs. I stayed glued to Daddy’s side, not taking up my usual position facing both of them. He managed to slide his hand loose, but he wrapped a gentle arm around my shoulder. “It’s okay El, I’m not going anywhere,” he murmured in my ear.

“Mark, I’m going to be frank. This was one of my concerns when we ended last night. Eleanor looks to you for a lot of support, and I’m worried that she’s not learning how to handle stress on her own. She needs to be able to come into an appointment without you holding her hand every step of the way.”

Daddy nodded as she talked, waiting for her to finish. “She needs extra help right now; that’s fine. We’re doing a lot, and it’s scary. I promised El that I would be here as much as she needs me to be.”

“That’s the entire problem though Mark. ‘We’re’ not doing a lot of work. Eleanor and I are. And it’s wonderful to see someone who is so fully invested in their partner’s recovery, but Eleanor needs to be able to function independently. If anything, I’m seeing a lot of regression. She depends on you far too much.”

“We’re comfortable with the way things are.” Daddy was calm, but firm. It was the voice he used when he was done discussing something with me.

“Eleanor, it’s imperative that you take more responsibility-” Daddy cut her off.

“Don’t do that,” his tone was frostier now.

“Excuse me?” she sounded affronted.

“Don’t talk to her like that. She’s scared and upset right now; she doesn’t need you trying to make her feel badly about needing support.”

“I’m going to have to insist that you leave Mark. Eleanor and I need to discuss what happened last night and what precipitated the most recent self-injury; we can’t do that openly with you in here.”

“It wasn’t self-injury. At least not intentional self-injury. She wasn’t trying to hurt herself.”

“It’s self-injury. It’s unacceptable. Frankly, I should probably be calling the hospital to have her involuntarily committed.

I whimpered slightly, wanting to crawl onto Daddy’s lap but afraid that would make Dr. Ayers angry. “No,” I whispered. “I won’t do it again. Don’t send me away.” I settled for pressing my face into his shoulder.

My voice was drowned out by Daddy’s. “Don’t you dare threaten her. She was upset; she doesn’t need to be committed. She stopped last night when I came in. She let me help her. We came in today to discuss what happened last night; not so you could frighten her.”

“It doesn’t matter if she’s upset-” he cut her off again.

“It certainly does. You can cancel our upcoming sessions; we’re leaving”

“Need I remind you that Eleanor is my patient Mark, not you. You cannot simply make a unilateral decision to withdraw her from treatment.”

“El, Baby, look at me,” Daddy’s voice was completely different now that he was talking to me, and I forced myself to look at his face. “Do you want to leave?”

I nodded at that. A lot. I did not want to be here.

“Okay then Sweetheart. Come on, let’s go,” taking my hand, we walked out. I wanted to be far far away from Dr. Ayers.

Who was not taking us leaving well. I blocked out what she was saying; it was hard because she was rather loud, but I focused on getting out to the car and far away from the office.

“You okay?” he asked me as he helped me buckle my seatbelt.

I nodded, my jaw clenched.

“I think we should drive really far away to get lunch. How do you feel about driving an hour to get amazing sandwiches?

“And cookies?” I asked, “the ginger ones?”

“And cookies. We have a whole day. I think we should have fun.”

He pulled out of the parking space and started off. We drove in silence for about 15 minutes when he started talking again.

“You know how much I love you?”

I looked at him quietly, not sure where he was going with this.

He went on, clearly not expecting me to talk right now. “So much. As long as I can keep you safe Princess, I will keep you at home.”

“She wanted to send me away,” it had frightened me badly, hearing her threaten that. Daddy had said it last night, but it was because he was scared.

“I don’t know that she did Baby. I think that she was frustrated. I promise that I won’t send you away unless I don’t have any other choices.”

“I didn’t like her. She’s mean.”

“We’re going to find someone else. I think it might be better if you had someone who understood us better.”

“Okay,” I looked out the window.

“Until then though Princess, you have to promise me something. Okay?”

“What?”

“If you start wanting to hurt yourself, or you think that you need to do something like what happened last night, you have to talk with me about it first. Understand?”

I nodded, then looked back out the window.

“And you still have to use your journal and your light. And I’m going to make you keep coloring your mandalas too Sweetheart. Until we find someone that is okay with the two of us together, that’s what we’ll do.”

I wrinkled my nose at that, but it was fair. “Okay Daddy.”

I didn’t want to talk about this anymore, but I felt the need to explain still. “I really wasn’t trying to hurt myself last night. I thought about it. I wanted to, but I knew I wasn’t supposed to. I just wanted to feel clean,” I paused, trying to gather my thoughts. “It doesn’t matter what I do though Daddy. I always feel dirty.”

“You aren’t though Princess. You didn’t do anything wrong; you aren’t dirty.”

“I feel yucky though. And sometimes I just think that if I can get the water hot enough, I can make myself clean.”

“You are clean. You don’t need to do that.”

“You called your mommy.”

He frowned at that sudden change in direction, but then nodded. “I did. I needed to talk to a nurse.”

“I didn’t like that. I don’t want her to know I’m bad.”

“You aren’t bad.”

“I don’t like it when people know what happened to me. It makes things different.”

“How?”

“People treat me funny once they know. They know I’m dirty and they don’t want to talk about it. That’s why it’s a secret. It makes people feel yucky to hear about it.”

“Is that why you don’t want to tell your Mom and Dad?”

“They probably wouldn’t believe me. And even if they did, it would make them feel bad.”

“And what would happen then?”

“When?”

“If they felt bad about it? It makes you feel bad. It makes me feel bad. People should feel bad about what happened to you. It shouldn’t ever happen to any kid.”

“I already gotta feel bad about it. They shouldn’t feel bad too.”

“Then why did you tell me?”

“I thought you would leave. I figured it was only fair that you knew what you were getting into. But you didn’t.”

“Nope. I didn’t leave. And your mom and dad wouldn’t either El. They’ll feel bad; it isn’t the end of the world.”

“Then I have to make them feel better. It’s too hard right now with everything. I can’t make them feel okay about it too.”

“That isn’t your job.”

“She’ll want me to tell her it isn’t their fault it happened.”

“I understand that. But it isn’t your job to make them feel better about it. It was a bad thing that happened to you; we should be making sure you’re okay. This was a really bad thing that happened to you, not because of you.”

“That’s not how it works though. They get upset and I have to make sure everybody is okay and it’s too much. It’s too much pressing down all at once. And she’ll tell everyone about it and then everybody treats me different.”

“Whose everybody?”

“My brother and sister. Her friends. It didn’t happen to her, but she’ll make it about her and everybody will feel so bad for her. There’s no space.”

“No space for what?”

“For me. I end up making sure everybody else is okay. I can’t just be sad or angry. I have to be okay so people know that they don’t have to be upset.”

“No you don’t Princess. That isn’t your job.”

“Yes it is,” I was getting frustrated with him again. It had always been my job. I had to make sure everyone was okay. “If I don’t, then nobody does. It gets too loud and everybody fights. It’s easier just to do it my way.”

“It doesn’t sound easier Ellie. It sounds a lot harder for you; you end up so busy making sure everybody else is okay and you don’t have any time to take care of yourself.”

“That’s my job though. I make sure everybody is okay. Sarah’s pretty and nice and smart. And Michael’s funny and creative. I take care of everything. If I do the dishes and make coffee and change diapers...then it doesn’t matter that I’m not special because I make sure they’re okay.”

“No.”

“Yeah Daddy, that’s the way it works.” I had never explicitly laid out the family dynamic for him, but I thought it was pretty obvious. Sarah was the good one and Michael had his charm. I couldn’t compete with that, but I could make sure that the table got cleared and nobody had to worry about anything.

“No it’s not.”

I laughed at him a little. “Yes it is. I’m good at taking care of other people. That’s what I do.”

He sighed. “Okay, then what happens if you don’t?”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t take care of everybody else. What would happen?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Just humor me Princess. If you don’t take care of everyone else, what happens then?”

I sat for a minute, trying to figure out how to answer him. “I don’t know. I just always do.”

“But if you didn’t,” his voice was patient; he clearly had a point he was trying to make even if I didn’t see it.

“Then I wouldn’t be doing anything. I have to take care of everybody otherwise I’m no good at anything. I’m just a mess; nobody would want me then.”

“Do you really think that?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I try hard, but I’m not so good.”

“Oh El,” he sounded so disappointed.

“It’s okay though Daddy. I’m not smart or pretty or nice or funny...and I’m kind of broken. But I’m still good at making it so other people don’t have to worry about stupid stuff. So I’m kind of useful, and nobody minds that I’m around then.”

“No Sweetheart,” he swallowed. “That’s not the way it works.”

“I know I’m not special...” I trailed off. He was right; it wasn’t the same as being special. “I know it’s not as good as other people, but it’s kind of important. ‘Slike at your work. Answering the phones doesn’t seem important, but it would be hard for you to get your work done if you didn’t have anybody around to do it. Somebody’s gotta do the boring stuff or the important stuff just doesn’t get done.”

He was quiet for a moment, and I relaxed. I thought he understood now. And then he started talking again. “No Princess. You’re wrong.”

“I know it’s not as important Daddy. I’m not saying it’s the same. It’s just helpful.”

I waited a minute, hoping that he would understand now. When he didn’t say anything, I thought I’d made my point more clearly than before. “See, that’s why I don’t want to tell them. Because then it makes them sad and I have to fix it. It’s easier to just not talk about it.”

We sat in silence again. I was relieved. He finally understood what I was trying to say. I leaned back and watched out the window, thinking. Then I thought of something to tell him.

“Know how much I love you Daddy?” I asked him. Not waiting for a response, I kept going. “I love you so much I’ll share my cookie with you.”

“Wow, that is a lot cookie monster,” Daddy sounded distracted.

“Uh huh.” We lapsed back into silence.

“Daddy, are you okay?” something seemed wrong, and I couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Do you really think you aren’t special Princess?”

He was still on that. I wanted to roll my eyes, but I restrained myself. “I’m not Daddy, but that’s okay. You love me anyway, right?” Maybe he hadn’t realized before that I wasn’t anything special. I tried not to panic at the idea that I had told him something he hadn’t known. Theoretically, he’d seen me at my worst, but maybe it was only worth it as long as he thought I was special. Now that he knew I wasn’t...

He interrupted my thoughts, “where are you Baby?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re thinking really loud is all El. What are you thinking about?”

“You love me, right Daddy?” a leading question, but I didn’t know that I really wanted to know the real answer.

“I do. Sometimes it makes me sad, like maybe I”m not doing a good job taking care of you and loving you because you worry about that an awful lot Princess.”

“It’s not you,” I rushed to reassure him. “I just get worried.”

“Maybe I should get cards made so you can look at them when you’re worried about that,” Daddy’s voice was dry.

“A tattoo,” I giggled a little at the thought.

“You better not,” his voice was mock-stern. He knew I wouldn’t. Not without permission at least. “I love you Princess. I wish you didn’t feel like you needed to make sure all the time, but yes, I love you.”

“So see? It doesn’t matter. If you love me I feel special even if I’m not.”

He sighed at that, and I felt like I’d said the wrong thing again. I decide to just be quiet for a bit. Better to not say anything than to risk disappointing him.

We got there soon after, but it wasn’t quite time for lunch. Instead, Daddy pulled me into a nearby shop. As I ran my fingers over things, I kept one eye on him. We’d had to talk too many times about me wandering off, and I didn’t want to do anything else wrong today. Especially since I still wasn’t sure what he was upset about.

We were at opposite sides of the store, but it was a small enough shop that I could watch him still as I looked through all the random weird stuff that was all over the place. He was occupied with something in a glass display case, but I felt him checking every couple of minutes to see where I was.

He was deep in conversation with a salesperson, and I started to relax enough to really look around without checking to see where he was. We were the only people in the store, and I could hear him murmuring. He wouldn’t leave me. I was running my fingers over a baby blanket with satin edging when he called for me.

“El? Come here for a minute, will you?”

I smiled as I came over to him, happy that he had phrased it as a request. I didn’t like it when I heard people being ordered around; even though we had agreed that he could, I appreciated that he didn’t usually.

“Do you like this necklace?” he dangled the pendant as he spoke.

I nodded. It was pretty, a thin, slightly irregularly shaped white gold heart on a delicate chain. “Beth’s birthday?” I hazarded, not sure why he was asking.

“Maybe,” he sounded distracted.

“She’d probably like that better,” I told him, pointing at a chunkier bracelet. “It’s more her style.”

“You think?” he smiled at me.

I nodded. The necklace was lovely, but a bit too sedate for Beth. “I’m just going to go look...” I trailed off, gesturing to the other side of the store. Not quite asking permission in front of the sales assistant, but still seeking it.

“Mmm,” he acknowledged, “thank you Sweetheart.”

I wandered back off, touching things as I went along.

There was a gigantic dollhouse in one corner, and I stood for a long time looking at it. I’d always wanted a dollhouse when I was little, but I’d never had one. I felt him come up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. “Are you ready to go eat?”

I nodded, taking his hand. “Did you get her the bracelet?” I asked.

“We have to come back after lunch. It needs to be engraved.”

I nodded at that, and then quickly became distracted when we entered the restaurant. “Cookies!” I told him.

“Lunch first,” he steered me into line. “What do you want Princess?”

We got through lunch quickly, and returned to the shop. I was more focused on the trip to the bookstore that I had been promised, and I waited for Daddy with slightly less patience than he probably would have liked as he took the bag offered by the clerk.

“Books now?” I asked him, bouncing a bit on my toes as I said it. I should have quit therapy ages ago, I felt great right now.

He took my hand, “What should we read?”

“Matilda. Or maybe The Witches. Something by Roald Dahl.” We walked to the shop and bought books together, picking out enough to last us for a few weeks.

It was nice, the first day in a while that I was really just happy. We wandered around, looking in shops, until I started to yawn. I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, and I was feeling it now. So we went home and napped together, and then got up and made dinner.

When we woke up, I started to feel bad again. We were different. It was like before, but not like before. We used to cook together too, but now Daddy decided what we were eating, and I wasn’t allowed to have a glass of wine. After dinner, we cuddled together on the couch, and read until he told me it was time for my bath.

Sitting in the bathtub, I was quiet. I didn’t know how to feel about us, about what we were doing. It scared me. And I felt irritable.

“You’re being quiet again Princess. Tired?” his hands were gentle as they shampooed my hair. I shrugged, irritated.

“Words Baby,” he prompted me.

“Not really. You made me nap a long time.” I tilted my head back so he could rinse, and then I watched him reach for the soap.

“Let me,” I told him, trying to capture his hands.

“No,” he didn’t stop what he was doing, calmly evading my attempts to grab the soap.

“I want to do it,” I tried to keep my voice calm as I said it, but I could feel myself becoming upset. When he didn’t respond, I slapped my hand down, splashing the water. “I don’t need help.”

“Do you need a time-out?” his tone was even as he asked.

“No!” I wasn’t a little kid.

“You’re acting like maybe you do.”

“No. I just don’t want you to help. I can do it myself.”

He put the soap down and leaned on the side of the tub, looking at me. “What’s the matter Princess?”

“Nothing,” I sounded sullen, even to my ears.

“No? That wouldn’t be a fib, would it Baby?”

“I’m not a baby.”

“Then use your big girl words and tell Daddy what’s wrong.”

I reached for the bar of soap, but he smacked my hands. “Don’t!” I yelled at him.

“Don’t shout at me Eleanor,” how could he sound so damn calm?

“I can if I want to. You can’t stop me.”

“El, look at me,” I didn’t want to make eye contact, and I stared determinedly away from him.

“Eleanor Rose,” he sounded a little irritated now. Good.

“I’m going to count. One,” he paused, and I forced myself to continue staring at the faucet. “Two. I don’t think you want me to get to three Princess,” he warned.

“Th-” I turned to glare at him.

“What?”

“What yourself. Where’s this attitude coming from?”

I didn’t answer him. I wasn’t entirely sure myself. I just knew that I was pissed off at him now.

“Princess, talk to me,” he was pleading now.

“I don’t need help; I can do it myself.”

He relaxed slightly at that, picking the soap back up and starting to run it over my back. “You can do it yourself, but I said no. And what does that mean?”

“That you’re mean.”

“No, it means I’m going to help you. And you know why too Eleanor. You need to show me you can make good choices so I know you’re not going to hurt yourself.”

“I don’t like that,” I whined, trying to grab the soap again.

“That’s fine. You don’t have to.” He calmly rinsed me off. “Time to get out.”

“No.”

“I’m getting pretty sick of you saying no to me when I ask you to do something Princess. I’m going to tell you again: it’s time to get out of the bath.”

“I don’t want to,” I smiled at him. That wasn’t the same as no.

“I think you must be very tired Princess; maybe it’s time for bed right now. You’re acting like a little girl who needs to get some sleep. I don’t know why else you would be acting so naughty.”

“Noooooooo,” I whined. “It’s too early.”

“Whining and telling me no,” he mused, “ Do you think that’s going to make me think you need to stay up?”

I glared at him, and then taking both of my hands, splashed him. “You’re mean,” I started complaining, and then I saw his face.

He grabbed both of my hands. “Up and out of the bathtub now Eleanor Rose,” he said as he forced me to stand up. After drying me off, he pointed toward the bedroom.

“I want you on the bed right now.”

I hurried over, climbing up to sit on the bed. I felt weird, sitting there naked while he was in (now wet) jeans, but he had walked to the dresser and was changing. Once he had pulled on pajama pants, he turned to look at me again. “On your tummy,” he instructed.

I gulped as I complied. He didn’t just order; Daddy always said please and thank you. I still had to do what he told me, but he tried to phrase it like a request to be polite. I tensed up when I felt him standing over me; I could feel him staring.

When he placed a hand on my bottom, I jumped. He wasn’t stroking or smacking like normal. I couldn’t tell what he was doing. I tried to hold still until he was finished, hoping that whatever he was planning would be over soon.

I made a little whining noise as he gently moved my legs around to look at me from different angles . I could feel him staring at me, and I wiggled a little bit in discomfort. I felt too exposed.

“Good news Eleanor. It looks like your bottom isn’t as bad as the rest of you. In fact, I’m not seeing anything wrong with it. No sore spots or anything from your shower last night. You look completely fine. Here at least. Stand up.”

My face was hot as I stood. He sat down on the bed and pulled me over to stand between his legs.

“So, what do you think I should do about your bad attitude tonight?”

I shifted uncomfortably in front of him, “I don’t know Daddy. I was upset.”

“Well, I think that maybe you need to see that the rules are the same even if you’re upset. I don’t care if you’re mad, even if it’s at me; it’s okay to be mad. But you don’t yell at me or tell me no, do you Eleanor?”

“You said you wouldn’t spank me!” I protested.

“I said I wouldn’t spank you until we talked about last night, which we did. And, I’ve given you a lot of chances tonight to stop acting up. If you don’t have any bad spots on your bottom or the backs of your legs, there’s no reason that I can’t spank you now.”

“But you said you weren’t going to spank me,” okay, now I was feeling not so good about my choices. I wouldn’t have been naughty if I had known that our spanking sabbatical was over.

“I wanted to talk about last night first, which we did after your session this morning. You’ve been very naughty since you woke up from your nap, and I think you need a reminder.”

“No Daddy!” I protested. “I can remember good without a spanking.” I put both hands behind me, protecting my bottom.

“Really? Because you’re not acting like you remember the rules.”

“No, I do.”

“Hmmm. What bad choices did you make tonight?”

I kept my hands behind myself as I tried to answer, my face flushing hot with shame. “I told you no. Kind of a lot Daddy. And I splashed you.”

“And what do you think we should do about that?”

“I don’t want a spanking,” I whimpered, bouncing up and down a little in frustration.

“I can understand that. But I don’t want you behaving like a naughty little brat because you think I’m not going to enforce the rules. And you really have been acting cranky all night tonight Eleanor. Do you think it’s fair that you were naughty because you were upset?”

“Nooooo,” I whined. He was right, but I didn’t want a spanking.

“You’re right; it’s not fair. It’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to me either. Now, instead of having fun and playing, I have to spank you.”

My chin wobbled at that. I didn’t want a spanking. “I’m sorrrrrrry Daddy. You don’t gotta.” I pulled away, standing a good arm’s length from him.

He sighed and looked at me. “I think I do gotta Baby. I asked you to talk with me about what was wrong, and you didn’t want to. I wish you had just told me why you were upset, but you made a bad choice to misbehave instead. Come here now,” he beckoned.

“I don’t like spankings,” I said, even as I walked closer.

“I don’t like when my sweet little girl has spoilt brat attacks instead of just telling me what’s bothering you,” he said, guiding me over his lap.

I cried from the first smack. His hand was hard, and it hurt even at the beginning. After spanking me for a little while, he started asking questions.

“Do you tell Daddy no?”

“Nooooo,” I cried, my legs moving involuntarily.

“Do you splash me?”

I shook my head, crying.

“Are you going to talk with Daddy the next time you get upset instead of being naughty?”

“Yes Daddy!” I wailed. I wanted to talk now. I wanted to talk and talk and talk; I wanted anything that meant no more spanking.

“Okay then,” and with that, he stopped. He didn’t wait for me to calm down, simply standing me back up and helping me onto the bed before he grabbed my babydoll pajamas and helped me into them.

“I think,” he said, “that it might be a good idea for us to go to bed early tonight.”

I wanted to protest, but my bottom was sore. I nodded, sniffling. “Doors?” I asked him.

“They’re locked. Should we go and double-check?”

I nodded, then followed him around the condo with my thumb in my mouth, carrying Stella in my other arm. Once he showed me that all the doors were locked I followed him up to bed.

He grabbed our book after tucking me in and started to settle down to read.

“I don’t want a story tonight.”

“Why not Princess? We just bought this today because you said you wanted to read it.”

I rolled onto my side, facing away from him, and hugged Stella against me. “I just don’t.”

He brushed hair away from my face, and I tensed again. “Baby, I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’m fine.”

“I don’t think that’s true. Something’s bothering you.”

“Stella’s upset.”

He paused for a moment, then said, “That’s not good. What’s she upset about?”

“She doesn’t like you.”

“She doesn’t?” Daddy didn’t sound concerned, and I wasn’t surprised when he settled under the covers, tugging me over to him.

“I don’t want you right now Mark,” I tried to protest.

“I know. It’s probably hard to like me when you’re having a bad day,” he said, ignoring my wiggling as he pulled me over to rest against his side like always.

We lay in silence for a while, my body tense with frustration and worry.

“You know what I think is really bothering Stella?” he asked me.

I tensed more, waiting to hear him make fun of me.

“I think,” he paused, “I think that maybe Stella’s worried that I’m not going to take good care of you or I’m going to get upset about something.”

“No, that’s not it.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? Because I know you and Stella spend a lot of time talking, and so she probably knows a lot about you.”

“And?”

“I think that letting me take care of you is scary.”He continued, “and I think that you don’t like to talk about hurting yourself or being assaulted. I think you get worried that you’re going to upset me.” His voice was gentle, and he had curled his body around mine as he spoke.

I could feel my throat thickening. I didn’t want to talk about this.

“And I think it scares you a lot, letting me know all this stuff. I know that it’s just hard to begin with because talking about it hurts, but I think maybe you’re scared that I’m going to not love you anymore.”

I tensed up as he said that. Not trusting that he would stay was supposed to be a secret. I hadn’t even talked with Dr. Ayers about it. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, and possibly more than that, I didn’t want to put any ideas in his head.

“It’s okay El. I’m not mad or upset.”

He continued. “I know you were really nervous the first time we talked about the sexual abuse. And I know we’ve talked about how a lot of times people don’t want kids because they’ve been hurt. And this is just a guess, but I’m betting that the few times you’ve told people have not gone well.”

I laughed bitterly at that. Two guys in the last ten years I’d been dating, and both of them had bailed. The first, my freshman year of college, just stopped returning calls after 6 months of dating. At least the second was more honest with me. After I finished telling him what had happened to me and explaining things like exaggerated startle responses and needing him to not tickle me, he told me point-blank that he wasn’t interested anymore. We’d been together for a year, and none of that mattered when weighed against me being a freak-show.

“Do you think maybe that’s why Stella’s upset? I think it’s probably pretty scary to tell me all this bad stuff.”

I didn’t answer, but my hands kept twisting the hem of his tee-shirt. My hands always gave me away when I was upset or nervous.

He sat up then, forcing me up so he could make eye contact. “Look at me Princess,” he waited until I did what he asked. “It’s okay. I promise, I will not ever going to be mad at you for being scared.”

My eyes dropped, staring at the bed. “Dr. Ayers asked what happened if you’re not here.”

“She did,” he agreed.

“I don’t like that.”

“You didn’t like the question?” he tried to clarify.

“No,” I shook my head. “I don’t like that Dr. Ayers thinks I need you. I don’t. I can take care of myself.” With that, I pulled away from his hands and stood up, walking over to the chair in the corner and curling up in it.

“So that’s what this is about?”

“Dr. Ayers thinks that I depend on you and can’t take care of myself, but I can. I don’t need you to do it. I don’t need anybody ever,” I made my voice as derisive as possible.

“No, you don’t need anyone, do you El?”

My eyes widened as I heard him agreeing with me, but then I nodded. “That’s right; I’m fine.”

He continued in a conversational tone, “You’re the independent one. I bet your mom and dad liked that a lot, huh? It was probably easy between dealing with your brother and sister to have Super-El who could handle everything and never needed any help ever.”

“I don’t.”

He got up at that and walked over to the chair. “Up,” he gestured. When I stood up reluctantly, he sat down and then pulled me into his lap. I struggled against him. I didn’t want to sit on his lap and talk.

“I bet that this makes you very nervous right now.”

“I don’t like to be held,” I protested, trying to get up.

“You do though, and sometimes, I think that scares you.”

“He used to hold me do-”

Mark cut me off then, “you and I both know that you aren’t afraid I’m going to hurt you. Maybe if you’re having a panic attack you worry I’m going to injure you, but not when you’re pretty much okay. This is about touching period. It makes you feel vulnerable.”

“No,” I protested.

“Yes El. And we’re going to talk about this. I think a lot of what’s going on with you has to do with you being scared. You’re depending on me to help you, and that scares you.”

“I’ll talk, but I don’t want to sit on-”

He cut me off again. “Nope. Sorry. We tried that last night. We’re going to sit here together and talk about this together. This isn’t you telling me stuff; this is us having a conversation.”

“It isn’t if you keep interrupting me. It isn’t fair if you don’t let me finish,” I told him, my voice snarky.

“Misdirection. You’re pretty good at that normally, aren’t you? When people get too close to something you don’t want to talk about, you try to distract them. It’s not going to work here El. I know your tricks, and you can’t fool me. I’ve already seen everything, and I’m not getting upset or leaving. So go ahead and pull your brat routine if you want, but all it’s going to get you is another spanking. And then we’re still going to talk about this.”

“I don’t have to talk to you if I don’t want to,” I crossed my arms across my chest and tried to ignore him. Which is difficult when you’re literally sitting on top of someone.

“Eleanor, we’re going to talk. Do you want to do it without another spanking?”

I shifted, my bottom still stung, and I didn’t want another spanking. When I felt his hands on my hips, moving me into position, I jerked away, pulling off of his lap. I quickly moved away, keeping my eyes on him.

“I’m not going to chase you Princess. I’ll be over here when you’re ready,” he settled comfortably in the chair, watching me.

My back to the wall, I slid down until I was sitting on the floor. We stayed like that for a while, just looking at each other. I got progressively more frustrated as we waited.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. “I don’t want another spanking.”

“You want to talk with me?”

“No!”

“Well, those are your choices Baby. You can either talk with me now, or I can spank you and then I’m still going to make you talk.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I love you, and holding this stuff back is eating you up inside Princess. Just talk with me. Whatever it is, it’s okay.”

I gritted my teeth, bouncing one of my legs and considering him. “You’re going to leave,” I finally said.

“No I’m not. I told you Princess, I don’t care what’s bothering you; it’s not enough to chase me off.”

“No, that’s-you’re going to leave.” Great, we were going to do a little Who’s on First routine.

“No I’m,” he stopped himself, comprehension dawning. “That’s what you’re afraid of? That I’m going to leave?”

I pressed my forehead to my knees; I didn’t want to look at him. “At first, I thought there was something wrong with you. But there isn’t. And I’m letting you do all the stuff and know all these secrets but there’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Can I come over closer to you so we can talk about this?”

I shook my head no. “I don’t need you over here.”

“Maybe I need you.”

I snorted at that. “You don’t need me. You should leave.”

He shifted so he was seated on the floor, but he was still across the room. “Why?”

“Don’t you get it?” I clenched my fists. “I’m a mess. I’m always going to be a mess. You think there’s going to be some point where I’m okay again, but I’m not. Not ever. I’m broken. And you’re going to get sick of me and leave.”

“You aren’t broken. You are going to feel better. You’ve started to feel better already. And even if I didn’t believe you were going to feel better eventually, I still wouldn’t leave.”

“You don’t know that,” I wailed, pounding at my hip with a clenched fist.

“Eleanor, if you hit yourself again, I’m going to spank you with the wooden spoon. Understand?”

I jumped up, wrapping my arms around myself. Then, looking him right in the eyes, I unwrapped one arm and slammed it into my thigh. “You’re going to leave. So why don’t you just do it now.”

While I was yelling at him, he got up and walked across the room, pulling me into a tight hold that I couldn’t pull free from. “Calm down,” his voice was in my ear. “Stop fighting, I’ll let you go once you’re calm and aren’t going to hit yourself again.”

I kept struggling for a minute, but then I stopped, breathing raggedly. Once he was satisfied that I wasn’t going to start pounding on myself again, he let me go, just holding onto one hand. Which he used to tow me across the room to where we kept the spoon.

Seating himself on the bed, he pulled me to stand between his thighs and lowered my panties. I blushed; I hadn’t decided yet what was worse, being forced to take them down myself or having him do it. It seemed like whatever was happening during that particular spanking was the worst.

As he guided me across his lap, I started crying again, “you don’t have to Daddy. I’m still sore from earlier.”

“Apparently not sore enough to remember to listen to me.” His hand was resting on my bottom, which really did still hurt.

“I was just mad; you don’t have to.” It had never worked before, but I figured it was worth a shot.

“What did I tell you not even an hour ago Eleanor? Do we not have rules when you get upset?”

“Nooooooo, but maybe just this one time?”

“Is being mad a reason to ignore me? Or hurt yourself?”

“Noooooooo.”

He started spanking me. With the wooden spoon to begin with, and even though I was already warmed up it still hurt more to start with the spoon. I was wiggling and kicking from the beginning.

“You know what I think?”

I was already crying hard, and I didn’t answer.

“I think that you wanted to see if I meant it, if I would really spank you again.”

I shook my head no at that. I hadn’t been testing him. I didn’t think.

“The rules are the same Eleanor, whether you’re happy or sad. You listen to Daddy and you don’t hurt yourself.”

“I knoooooooow,” I whimpered.

“When you’re naughty, when you decide that you don’t have to follow the rules, these are the consequences. I’m not going to leave; you can’t make me mad enough or disappointed enough to leave. So you can either accept that, or you can keep testing me.”

Moving the spoon down so it would strike where my thighs met my butt, he continued. “If you want to test me, that’s fine. But you need to remember that this is exactly where that leads. So if you want to keep getting spanked; you go right ahead and keep breaking the rules.”

He laid the spoon down then, and rubbed my back gently while I cried.

“Okay. We’re all done Sweetheart. You’re okay. It’s over.”

He helped me to stand up, and I launched myself into his arms this time. “I’m sorry Daddy. I’ll be good; I promise,” I was babbling as he continued to stroke my back. Once he had me calmed down, he helped me lie on the bed and pulled my panties back up.

“It’s been a long day,’ he said, laying next to me.

I nodded, rolling closer to him and putting my thumb in my mouth. I was tired.

“No story still Baby? We could read a chapter in your book if you want?”

I shook my head, closing my eyes, and I was asleep.

 

Epilogue: Mark’s POV

I didn’t fall asleep as easily as El did; I lay there in bed listening to her even breathing and going over the events of the last several days.

I should have known Dr. Ayers was the wrong therapist. She’d complained about her a lot, but I had just figured she was whining because she didn’t want to go. I hadn’t realized how much Dr. Ayers was making her doubt our relationship.

I was feeling pretty guilty. I had forced her to go to Dr. Ayers. I had forced her to talk last night when she was clearly already fragile.

Normally, I was able to separate my decisions from her behavior, but last night had been really bad. I always told her that she controlled the choices that she made, but it hadn’t been deliberate. I’d seen her in the bathroom. It was like she wasn’t there. This wasn’t hurting herself out of anger or frustration or even sadness; she genuinely thought she had to scrub herself clean. There’s no way she would have hurt herself so badly if that wasn’t it.

I hadn’t been exaggerating when I told my mother there was blood. Not everywhere, but on her legs and arms, she’d managed to scrub hard enough to break the skin in several places. I hadn’t been able to get a good enough look between her legs to know how badly she’d hurt herself there.

She’d been way too panicked. When I helped her back into the bathtub, she had been shaking so badly I’d seriously contemplated taking her to the hospital. She seemed off, shocky.

At first, I thought she had insisted that I not touch her because she was afraid that I’d hurt her. We’d been there before. In the middle of a panic, she can’t always separate what’s happening in the moment and what’s happened before. Then I realized that all of her talk about contamination was worry about me.

Okay, I hadn’t realized. My mother had realized. Having a mother who is an ER nurse has its benefits, not the least of which would be how great she is in an emergency. She’s dealt with a lot of sexual abuse victims, and she had offered a different spin on last night when we talked.

“She’s scared that she’s going to hurt you Mark,” she’d told me. “She thinks that she’s dirty and this was her fault. She’s trying to make herself clean so she can stay.”

I hadn’t wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe that El knew I would never leave; it wasn’t exactly new ground for us. And then when we started talking, really talking, I realized she didn’t.

Pretty much the only thing I was giving myself Daddy points for now was Stella. Who hadn’t really been my idea but the result of hours of searching the Internet for advice for parents on how to deal with sexual abuse and trauma.

And I’m not crazy; I get that El isn’t really a child. I don’t want her to be either. But sometimes, I think it’s easier for both of us if she slips into being Princess. She doesn’t fight the rules as much, and she lets people take care of her.

After hours of discussions with Ellie about trauma when she was clinical and detached, I had a pretty good understanding of trauma theory, and my Baby fit the profile of a four year old trauma victim almost perfectly. She was anxious, ashamed, guilty, and hypervigilant. She still engaged in magical thinking, and she was constantly watching people around her to figure out how she was supposed to respond. In a lot of ways, it was like she was an alien; she had no idea how she was supposed to feel or act and she watched everyone else closely to figure it out. Until we talked in the car, I hadn’t realized that she felt like she had to take care of everyone, but that was also part of it. She vacillated between over-compliance and outright refusal to do something simply because I told her to.

And, most telling, she views any need she has as being out of control. She doesn’t trust anyone to meet her needs. I had thought that we had made progress with that, but I realize now that she was faking it. She still figured I wouldn’t do it; she just didn’t want to hurt my feelings.

One of the websites I’d found had suggested purchasing a special toy for the child to play with, a friend that they could talk to. The idea was that sometimes it felt safer for kids to talk with something they knew wouldn’t be upset with them first. I’d read somewhere else about using special stuffed animals for nightmares. I had been skeptical that it would work, but I figured she would like Stella anyway.

I had not anticipated how much. Or how helpful Stella would be. El seemed to feel safe using Stella to talk about things and acknowledge feelings that otherwise scared her. El didn’t have to get mad at Daddy, Stella could. El didn’t have to ask for something because Stella was always there to ask me instead.

I’d caught on easily, and Stella was now often involved in difficult discussions. Stella didn’t want to talk about El being assaulted because she found it upsetting. And occasionally, Stella didn’t want El to have to eat vegetables or go to bed. Stella was angry when El got spanked. And now, Stella was worried that I was going to make Eleanor need me and love me, and that I was then going to abandon her.

I absentmindedly stroked her hair, watching her sleep while I tried to figure out what we were going to do. I wasn’t sure what I could do or say that would make her understand that I was staying. Frustrated and tired, I finally resolved that I just had to keep doing what we were doing; eventually, it would sink in.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time we got to Dr. Finnegan’s office, she invited Daddy and I both in. After offering us something to drink, she gestured to the couch. I was glued to Daddy’s side; he had promised he would stay with me until I said it was okay for him to leave. He had also promised that if I didn’t like Dr. Finnegan we would look for someone else.

“Eleanor, would you like to sit with your Daddy and I right now, or would you like to play for a bit while we talk about why you’re here?”

I relaxed marginally at that. She had called Mark Daddy; I didn’t have to pretend that we were just dating in here. I looked at Daddy, not sure what I was supposed to do.

“It’s okay if you’d like to talk with us, but I have crayons and paper over there,” she gestured toward a table in the corner. “There are toys as well.”

I shook my head no, curling my feet under myself and leaning against Daddy’s shoulder.

“You’re going to stay here while we talk?” she asked.

I nodded at that, and then sat, watching her closely.

“You’re welcome to talk as well if you’d like, but it’s alright if you don’t want to. Okay?” she paused again, making sure I understood. She waited until I nodded before continuing.

“I know you’re Eleanor’s Daddy, and I know that Eleanor was previously involved in therapy. That’s pretty much it Mark. What can you tell me about why you’re here?”

“El was diagnosed with depression and PTSD six months ago,” he paused and looked down at me. “I’d like you to go and draw a picture please.”

I shook my head no at that, pressing myself against him.

“Yes please. Come on,” he stood up and led me over to the table. After he had me situated so I was facing out and could see him, he handed me the crayons and some paper. Kneeling down to my level, he brushed my hair away from my eyes. “I’m going to be right over there,” he pointed at the couch. “Could you draw me a picture while we talk?”

I gripped one of his hands tightly for a minute, but then I nodded and let him go. I picked up a blue crayon and began slowly outlining a small flower.

“Thank you Princess,” he kissed my forehead and then walked back over to the couch. I stopped drawing for a minute, carefully watching him. When I saw him settle on the couch, I began drawing again, checking repeatedly to make sure Daddy wasn’t leaving.

“Is she always this quiet?” I made sure to keep coloring, but I listened to their conversation. Daddy laughed a little at that question.

“No. Normally she talks a mile a minute. She just gets a little nervous and shy in new situations. After what happened with Dr. Ayers, she’s pretty apprehensive about being here today.”

“What can you tell me about that?”

Daddy sighed, rubbing his forehead tiredly before he began recounting the story. “I found Dr. Ayers through a friend of the family. She specializes in self-injury and sexual abuse, and I thought that finding a therapist who could address the trauma was the most important thing. El had been seeing her for a few months; things were going well. She hated going to therapy, but I chalked that up to not wanting to talk about it.” He paused.

“What happened then?”

“We had a bad session. Dr. Ayers felt it was important for her to tell her parents about the sexual abuse; El was upset. She had a panic attack, and Dr. Ayers didn’t like how we handled it.”

“How was that?”

“I held El so she couldn’t hurt herself, and I reminded her to breathe. It’s what we normally do, but she’d never had one in therapy before.”

“That sounds appropriate. What was Dr. Ayers concerned about?”

“She felt that El was overly reliant on me. She was also concerned when she learned that I wasn’t leaving her home alone. We ended up running out of time in the session, and Dr. Ayers asked El to write about what scared her about telling her parents. When we got home, I forced El to talk about it.” Daddy stopped talking, upset. I stopped coloring, just watching him for a minute. When he didn’t continue, I got up and walked back over to him, grabbing his hand and squeezing.

Daddy looked up at me and smiled. “I’m okay Sweetheart. Go on and finish your picture.” He nodded at the table. I shook my head, not wanting to leave him.

“El, go sit down and finish coloring please,” he pointed to the table. I bit my lip, worried about how he would respond, but then I shook my head no again.

“Eleanor, if you don’t go sit down, we won’t be going to get a treat after this. I’ll take you home and you’ll get a spanking instead. Is that what you want?”

I blushed. I didn’t want Dr. Finnegan to hear about me getting spanked, and my eyes welled up with tears. I didn’t want him to be sad or feel bad about what happened.

His voice was gentler this time, “go on and color Princess. I’m fine.”

Looking at him skeptically, I turned and walked back to the table. I curled tightly onto the chair and took a crayon, staring determinedly at my picture. He waited until I was settled at the table before he continued.

“She had another panic attack. When I finally got her calmed down, she told me that she couldn’t tell her parents because she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. She said the sexual abuse was her fault; it happened because she was bad. We fell asleep, and when I woke up, I found her in a scalding shower scrubbing at herself,” he paused again. “She’d managed to make herself bleed. I scheduled an emergency session with Dr. Ayers, who didn’t want me involved. She ended up threatening to have El placed in a psych ward, and I lost my temper.”

Dr. Finnegan looked at me, “It sounds like Dr. Ayers wasn’t a good fit for you.”

I nodded at that, then returned to my picture.

“It turned out that Dr. Ayers had been undermining our relationship when I wasn’t in the room. El was pretty upset by it, but she didn’t want to tell me.”

“Is that a pattern? Does she not tell you things often?”

“Sometimes. We’re working on it; she has a lot of trouble when she thinks it’s going to upset me.”

“Upset you like she’s going to get into trouble, or is she trying to spare your feelings?”

“Usually, she’s protecting me. Sometimes she doesn’t tell me stuff if she thinks she’ll get spanked.”

I blushed again. I didn’t like it when Daddy talked about spanking with me; it was way worse when it was someone else. He was so damn nonchalant about it, and Dr. Finnegan seemed to think it was normal.

“Okay. You told me the diagnoses. Can you tell me what initially led to therapy?”

I looked up at that, watching Daddy. He had apparently anticipated that because he was looking at me and smiled reassuringly. “Do you want to be over here while we talk about this Princess? Or are you going to finish your picture instead?” I looked back down and started coloring. I didn’t want to see Dr. Finnegan’s face when Daddy told her.

“Words Baby,” Daddy reminded me.

“Color,” I mumbled, flushing hotly.

“Okay,” he turned back to Dr. Finnegan to continue talking. “She was sexually abused by a friend of the family when she was about four. I made her go to therapy after I came home one day and found her gouging her arms.”

“And that’s when she was diagnosed?”

“Yes and no. She went to therapy as a teenager for depression, but she had never disclosed the sexual abuse. She hadn’t been in therapy or taken medication in close to ten years by the time we started dating. Her doctor put her on bupropion, and she started going to therapy twice a week.”

“Alright. Thank you Mark, that was very helpful. From what you’re saying, the primary reason for therapy is addressing Eleanor’s history of sexual abuse. Does that sound right?”

“Pretty much. I kind of figured that the anxiety and self mutilation would resolve itself once we talked about the sexual abuse.”

“That may be. You should prepare yourself though, even after handling the sexual abuse, there’s a biochemical issue that may continue.”

Daddy nodded at that, and I smiled at my picture. She knew what she was talking about at least.

Dr. Finnegan turned to me. “Eleanor, Daddy keeps calling you El. Is that a name just for him, or do you prefer that?”

“El,” I said softly, not making eye contact.

“El, we have about 10 minutes left; would you like to come over here and just talk or should Daddy and I come to play with you instead?”

I stood up to walk back to the couch, holding my picture in one hand. Once I settled next to Daddy, Dr. Finnegan addressed me again.

“Can I see your picture?” Dr. Finnegan’s voice was quiet, and she held out one of her hands to me. I pressed closer to Daddy, but I handed it to her.

“You drew a garden,” she commented, smiling at me. “Do you like blue? I see a lot of blues and purples.”

I didn’t respond, staring at my lap.

“It sounds like talking is a problem at your house?” she asked. I shrugged, and she directed her next question at Daddy.

“Mark, do you feel like El not responding is an issue?”

I looked up at Daddy, knowing what the answer would be. “It can be, but we’re working on it and normally she just needs a reminder,” Daddy smiled at me and hugged me with one arm.

“I’m hesitant to force a client to talk.”

“That’s fine. El knows that I expect her to talk to me, but I trust your judgement in here.”

“Alright. It’s important that you understand Mark; El is my client. However, I recognize your relationship is different, and I welcome your involvement as much as she wants it. I’d like her to sign a release form so we can talk, and I’d appreciate if you could call me if you have any concerns or questions that you’d prefer to address privately.”

Daddy nodded, “thank you.”

“El, you don’t have to talk to me. At least not for now. But, I do need you to respond to me when I ask a question. So, you can nod or shake your head. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“Good girl. Did you listen when Daddy and I were talking earlier?”

I nodded again, albeit more hesitantly this time. I looked up at Daddy, not sure what his response would be. He smiled at me. “It’s okay.”

“I’m going to give you my card with my phone number and my email address. If you have any questions, or you want to talk about something without Daddy, you can do that. I’m happy for your Daddy to be as involved as you want him to be, but if you have secrets that you don’t want him to know, that’s okay. Are you alright with signing a release form so I can talk with him?”

I nodded again at that, relaxing a little more against Daddy. This was way easier than Dr. Ayers.

“Mark, I know you’re aware that I specialize in clients with alternative lifestyles, and I know my receptionist sent you information about me. El, do you have questions about my credentials or my therapeutic approach?”

I shook my head.

“I’d like to see you twice a week. We can discuss increasing or decreasing as we work together, but I think that’s good to start with. For now, since you’re not comfortable talking, we’re going to be doing a lot of play therapy. Do you know what that means?”

I nodded, and Daddy told her, “El’s a social worker. She works with children in the foster care system.”

Dr. Finnegan nodded at that, “a lot of sexual abuse cases?” she asked.

Daddy made a face as he responded, “yes. A ton. Sometimes I think that she asks for them.”

I shook my head vehemently at that. I couldn’t help it; they just seemed to end up on my desk.

“No?” Dr. Finnegan asked.

I shook my head again.

“Alright. I think that’s enough for tonight. I’d like to see you again on Tuesday if that’s alright?”

Daddy nodded, and I slowly untangled myself from him so we could stand up. Dr Finnegan shook Daddy’s hand and then waved at me.

“I’ll see you next week El.” She held out my picture for me.

I smiled a little, and snatched it back. Then, clutching Daddy’s hand tightly, we left.

Daddy smiled at me and hugged me tightly. “You did such a good job Princess. What did you think of her?”

“She seems nice. You’re going to stay with me though, right?”

“Uh huh. As long as you want me in there I’m going to stay.”

I nodded at that and leaned against his side as we left the building and walked toward a nearby restaurant. We had talked before the session about what I wanted to do afterward, and Daddy had bribed me with promises of chocolate cake with dinner.

“I don’t ask for them,” I told him as we walked.

“For what?”

“Those cases. Lots of times the kids don’t say anything till they get to me.”

“Okay baby.”

We walked the rest of the way in companionable silence. Daddy kept me busy the rest of the night and through the weekend. We didn’t talk about Dr. Finnegan until Tuesday morning when Daddy reminded me of my session. I suspected, although I couldn’t prove it, that he had spoken with Dr. Finnegan at some point and they had agreed that twice weekly therapy was enough. Or at least, there hadn’t been any homework that week.

The second session went okay. Dr. Finnegan had me draw again. She sat with me at the table. Daddy started out at the table, but midway through the session he moved to the couch.

I got anxious, but Daddy swore he wasn’t going to leave. I watched him a lot, but he simply sat on the couch reading a book. Dr. Finnegan talked with me quietly, and I managed to make it through the session. I was happy when it was over and quiet for the rest of the night.

We made it six sessions before I finally started talking, and it was an accident. Dr. Finnegan tricked me. We were doing undirected play with play dough. I kept rolling it into balls and then smashing it again.

“You seem upset tonight.”

I shook my head no, pounding on another ball of play dough.

“Really? Because you seem pretty angry.”

I shook my head no again, pounding harder.

“Sometimes, it can be hard to talk about feelings. That’s why we’re using the play dough. Normally, when someone is being that rough, it means that something is making them angry.”

“I’m not fucking angry!” I exploded. Then I covered my mouth quickly and looked over at Daddy. I hadn’t meant to say anything, let alone swear. Daddy had lifted his head from his book and raised one eyebrow as he looked at me. I bit my lip and looked down, “sorry,” I mumbled.

“You don’t need to apologize. In this room, you can say anything you want. Whatever rules you have out there about things you say or don’t say, they aren’t in here.”

I nodded, not looking at her.

“I was being irritating; I kept telling you how you felt. Plus, I don’t think you want to be here.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about what happened.”

“We won’t talk about anything you don’t want to. You’re the boss in here. Eventually, you’ll be ready to talk about the bad stuff, but we can wait.”

I picked up some new play dough. “What else will we talk about?”

“Whatever you want.”

Staring at the table, I started hesitantly, “Daddy said...”I trailed off.

“Daddy said you were here to talk about the abuse and not hurting yourself anymore?” she hazarded.

I nodded, looking up briefly to make eye contact and then back at the table.

“He’s right. Those are some of the things that we’ll talk about eventually. But for right now, I want you to just get comfortable being here so you don’t mind coming to therapy. I’d like to talk with your Daddy for about ten minutes. If you’d like to stay in here and listen, that’s fine. Or, you can go wait in the lobby.”

I nodded again, picking up the play dough and putting it away neatly. “What are you going to talk about?” I asked, as I focused on cleaning everything away.

“You. And rules for therapy because I need to make sure he understands that you don’t get into trouble for anything that we talk about.”

I smiled at that. “I’ll wait in the lobby.” Standing up, I moved to leave the room. Daddy smiled at me as I left. After closing the door, I waited quietly outside, wanting to hear exactly what was going to be said.

“She talked,” Daddy sounded pleasantly surprised.

I heard movement, and a sound that I thought was Dr. Finnegan sitting down in her chair. “She talked,” she agreed. “I told you she would eventually. She just needed us to be patient.”

“She swore,” I almost swore again, hearing that.

“She did,” Dr. Finnegan conceded. “And that’s why you needed to stay here. She needs to be able to talk in here; she needs to be able to say whatever she wants. If she feels like there will be consequences for what she says, she is going to clam up because she’ll be afraid of saying the wrong thing.”

Daddy didn’t say anything to that.

Dr. Finnegan continued, “Children who have been sexually abused often try to tell multiple times before succeeding. One of the fastest ways to make sure they don’t talk is to respond badly to it. In a lot of ways, El is frozen at four years old.”

“So what do I do? I can’t just let her run amuck. Whenever I try to loosen the reins, she does something that she knows that she is really not allowed to do,” he sighed. “I don’t have any idea what I’m doing.”

I thought I could Dr. Finnegan smiling as she responded to that, “I’m not saying that your rules don’t matter. I’m saying for this one particular place, the rules about talking get suspended. I’d strongly encourage you to do the same thing at home when it comes to talking about the abuse. And as for the behavioral issues...she’s testing you. It’s important that she know where the line is.”

“Do you get a lot of couples like us in here?” I pressed my ear against the door, anxious to hear her response. I heard what sounded like her drawer opening.

“This is a picture of me with my partner. Meg and I have been together for five years. I’ve been Mommy for four of those. Look Mark, I can’t say I know what it’s like for you and El; Meg had an amazing childhood. I can imagine though. If she was in this much pain...I don’t know how I would respond. All I can say is that you have to do what you think is best at any given moment. And accept that sometimes you’re going to be wrong.”

Daddy didn’t say anything to that, but I heard movement. Jumping away from the door, I ran to the lobby where I sat in a chair and tried to look as angelically innocent as I could. Daddy smiled at me when he came out.

“Good night El. I’ll see you next time.”

I smiled at Dr. Finnegan, “Bye.”

As we were walking out, Daddy swatted me once. I yelped and jumped at the sting. “What was that for?”

“Little spy. Did you find what you heard interesting? Why didn’t you just stay in there?”

I shrugged, “people say more interesting stuff when they don’t know I’m there.”

Daddy laughed at that, hugging me to him, “I catch you doing that again, I’m going to give you a spanking.”

I nodded, and then we went to dinner.

We had another four sessions before I was ready to stay in the room by myself. Daddy and I had talked about it the night before in bed.

I had been laying with my head resting on his chest, my thumb in my mouth, and Daddy was rubbing my back gently.

“What would you do if I was with Dr. Finnegan by myself?” I started.

“You mean if you were ready to try a session without me?” he asked.

I nodded.

“I would wait in the lobby for you. If you needed me, you or Dr. Finnegan could come and get me.”

I nodded again, focusing on his chest and listening to his heartbeat.

“Do you think maybe you’re ready to try a session without me?” he asked gently.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know.

“El, I need you to use your words.”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“We could have me in there for only some of the time if you want.”

“You promise that you won’t leave the lobby?” other than work, we weren’t really spending any time apart.

“I promise,” he rubbed my back, “I wouldn’t want to be too far away in case you decided that you wanted me.”

“What if Dr. Finnegan didn’t let me go and get you if I got scared?” Dr. Ayers had done that on several occasions, refusing to allow Mark to come into a session when I got upset. I hadn’t known how to talk to Daddy about it.

“I don’t think she’d do that. We can talk with her before about you being worried though, and I can keep my phone and you can keep your phone. If you need me, you could call. That way you don’t have to worry about Dr. Finnegan making the decision.”

“I’m tired,” I changed the subject, squirming slightly away so that I could rest my head on my pillow.

Daddy leaned over and turned off the bedside lamp, and we slept. The next morning, I wanted to talk about it before work again. “You would tell Dr. Finnegan that you have to come back if I want you?” I asked.

“I will. I can start out the session in there with both of you and make sure that Dr. Finnegan understands what our rules are so you can do this, and then I’ll go to the lobby for a little while.”

“What if I can’t do it?”

“Then you can’t. And we try again another time.”

“I have to go to work.” Grabbing my bag and my coat I left quickly, not wanting to talk about it further.

Daddy gave me a kiss on my way out. “You need to be home by 6:00 so we can make it to your 6:30 appointment. Understand?”

I nodded, and then I went off to start my day.

That night, in therapy, Daddy came back like he promised. I was quiet again, not knowing how to say what I wanted so Dr. Finnegan would listen.

“El said she thinks she’s ready to try having me go out into the lobby,” he started. Dr. Finnegan nodded, and Daddy continued. “She wants to make sure though that I can come back if she needs me.”

“Of course. If you’re ready to try that El, we would do is what we normally do. We’d just have your Daddy out in the waiting room. Do you think that’s something you want to try tonight, or did you just have questions right now?”

“Tonight,” I was quiet. It was better to just do it rather than let myself get worked up.

Daddy started to stand up to leave, and I clutched his hand. He sat back down and hugged me. “El, if you’re not ready, that’s okay. I can stay this time.”

I shook my head no at that, but hugged him closely. “You promise you won’t leave?” I said in his ear.

“I promise I will stay in the lobby waiting for you to finish. If you need me, you know where I am. Do you want to try today for sure, or do you want to have more time with me in here?”

“I can do it. But you stay in the lobby.”

He let go of me with one arm and dug through his pocket, pulling out his keys. He pressed them into my hands, “See, I’m not going anywhere. You’ve got the car keys; I can’t leave. Are you ready for me to go or do you need me to stay for a little while?”

I let him, clutching the keys tightly, “you can go. I’m okay.”

“There’s my girl. You are being so brave. I’m going to go to the lobby now. Do you have your phone?”

I nodded, and Daddy turned and walked out the door. Instantly, I was regretting it, pulling into myself on the couch and trying not to panic.

Dr. Finnegan’s voice broke through, “El, do you need me to go get Daddy? I need you to shake your head if you want to keep going without him.”

I shook my head no, and closed my eyes. “I’m okay.”

“Are you sure? Because it’s okay if you need him. It was a big step today to ask him to leave, and we can have him come back and it will still be a big deal.”

I shook my head again and forced myself to open my eyes back up. “I can do it.”

“Alright. What did you want to do today?”

“I don’t know,” I should have thought of that before.

“Do you want to try coloring a picture?”

I nodded, and we went over to the table. She handed me a sheet of paper and some crayons and colored pencils.

“What do you want me to draw?”

“Whatever you want. Having Daddy leave was a big step; I think that’s enough work for today. I just figured we’d color for our session if that’s okay with you.”

I felt a lot more relaxed after that, and I began drawing a picture for Daddy. As we both drew quietly, we started talking a little about unimportant stuff. She said she had gone to the zoo over the weekend and we talked about what animals I liked. She asked what Daddy and I were reading together. Stuff like that. Halfway through the session, I said it.

“Daddy doesn’t like it when I hurt myself, but I do.”

“You do?”

“Uh huh. It doesn’t really hurt. It feels good. He gets mad though.”

“Do you know why it feels good?”

“It just makes it feel better.”

“Remember when we played with the play dough and you were smashing it?” she paused until I nodded in assent, “talking about bad stuff is hard, but not talking about it is hard too. Sometimes, hurting yourself is a way to let some of that out. It’s also proof. Sometimes, when you feel really bad inside and nobody can see it, that makes it worse. So when you hurt yourself it’s a way to show everybody how you feel.”

“Daddy doesn’t want me to do it.”

“Well, that’s because it isn’t a good idea. There are better ways of dealing with bad feelings than hurting yourself.”

“Like what?”

“Like what we’re doing now. Drawing and painting can be helpful. Or you can talk to someone like me or your Daddy. Or you can go for a walk or write about it. There are a lot of things you can do; you have to decide what makes you feel better. I have one client who draws on herself instead.”

That was a new one. I stopped coloring and looked at Dr. Finnegan. “Does her Daddy get mad?”

“She doesn’t have a Daddy. We talked about it together, and we decided that using a marker to show her bad feelings was better than cutting herself. You want me to show you?”

I laid one of my arms on the table, and waited expectantly. Dr. Finnegan pulled out a red marker. “Where do you normally cut yourself?”

“Here,” I pointed to a spot.

“Do you want lines? or we could do words or shapes.”

I shrugged at that, not sure.

“Why don’t you show me what you normally do,” she handed me the marker.

“Will you tell Daddy I’m not in trouble?” I figured I should verify that before I wrote on myself.

“Is there a rule about writing on yourself?”

I shook my head no.

“Then yes, I’ll tell him that we’re trying a new technique and you’re not in trouble.”

Concentrating on my arm, I brought the marker down and drew a straight line, midway between my elbow and my wrist. After I finished that one, I drew two more, one on either side.

“See, it doesn’t hurt you and it isn’t dangerous. But, it’s something that makes it so you can see that you’re hurting. Sometimes it’s easier to deal with something that we can see.”

I ran fingers tentatively over my arm. “I like it better when I have welts.”

“I understand that. But, this is something you can do that isn’t against the rules,” she leaned over. “It will be a while before you don’t want to cut; I want to help you come up with new ideas for how to deal with your feelings that you can do instead.”

“What if I always want to hurt myself?”

“You may. It may never go entirely away. The thing you need to decide is if it’s worth it to you. You said Daddy doesn’t like it?”

I nodded my head yes, “he spanks my bottom with the spoon. It hurts a lot.” I averted my eyes as I said that; I’d never talked about being spanked with anyone other than Daddy.

Dr. Finnegan nodded at that, “we have a spoon at our house, and my little girl hates it too. Does he yell at you?”

“Daddy doesn’t ever yell. We don’t yell at our house. He just gets quiet and sad. I don’t like it.”

“So, the question you have to answer is: ‘does cutting make you feel good enough that it’s worth getting a big spanking and making Daddy sad?’”

I nodded. That made sense.

“It’s almost time to go. Can you pick up the art supplies while I go to get your Daddy?”

I nodded and began putting the crayons away while Dr. Finnegan got up and left. She came back with Daddy really fast, and they stood talking for a little bit while I finished.

I tried to listen, but they were in the hallway and they were being really quiet. Plus, Daddy had told Dr. Finnegan that I liked to listen, and now she used a white noise machine.

I cleaned up as fast as I could and went out into the hallway. Leaning against Daddy, I yawned.

“You tired Princess?” he asked, handing me my coat.

I shook my head no, “I’m not.”

He laughed, “of course not. Thank you Dr. Finnegan; somebody needs to get home and go to bed. We’ll see you next week.” Taking my hand, he started leading me down the hallway.

“Bye,” I said. “I’m really not tired Daddy. We’re supposed to go get dinner.”

Pulling me into an alcove, he began helping me get my coat on and zipping it. “I think you’re fibbing Princess. We can stop and get carryout tonight; you need to get some sleep.”

“Noooooooo,” I whined, scuffing the toe of my shoe against the floor.

“Baby, you had such a good night tonight. Please don’t start acting up now.”

“Can’t we pleeeeeease go get tacos Daddy?”

“We can go and pick up tacos if you’d like, but we’re going to eat at home. I think you need an early night.”

I didn’t like it, but I knew it was going to be the best offer I’d get, “fine,” I said, “but I’m not happy.”

“That’s fine.”

After we ate, we went through our usual pre-bed ritual. Daddy made me show him my arms and legs before my bath every night so he would know I hadn’t hurt myself during the day. When he looked at the markered lines on my arms, he paused for a moment.

“She said I could,” I told him.

“I heard. Did it make you feel better?”

I shrugged, “the only thing that makes me feel better is cutting myself and you won’t let me.”

Daddy sighed at hearing that, and then helped me into the bathtub.

We made it another four sessions before I started talking about what happened. Dr. Finnegan had a box of dolls on the table, and she wanted me to tell her a story. I knew what she was doing, and I didn’t want to.

If we were going to talk about this, I wanted it to be on my terms. I didn’t want to tell the story using dolls.

“Sometimes, I wish that he had hurt me worse.”

“Who?”

“Daniel. People act like it’s not a big deal because it was only touching. It would be easier if he had hurt me really bad so everyone could see it.”

Dr. Finnegan nodded at this.

“If he had left some kind of mark...then it would be okay that I’m all messed up. I have clients come through every day who got it worse than me, and they’re okay. It shouldn’t be this big of a deal.”

“You think that somehow it isn’t as bad because Daniel only touched you.”

“It isn’t. I’ve seen kids who have been passed around to different adults and little girls who have parents who traded them for drugs and cash. What happened to me is nothing.”

“Is that what you tell your clients who got molested? That they should get over it because it could have been worse.”

“Of course not.”

“Then why is it different for you?”

“It just is,” I paused, “Daddy wants me to hate Daniel,” I told her, “Daddy thinks it will make me feel better if I hate him.”

“What do you think?”

I pulled my legs up to my chest and looked at her closely. “Hating him doesn’t make what happened go away.”

“No, it wouldn’t.”

“I don’t want to hate him.”

She nodded, waiting for me to continue.

“It’s not fair. He already messed me up; I don’t want to hate him too. Can we color?” I asked, changing the subject.

“If that’s what you’d like,” she handed me paper and crayons and swept the dolls into the box. I began drawing a forest.

As I drew, I started talking again. I didn’t want to look at her. “I never wanted it to be about me. I told myself for forever that it hadn’t been; that I was remembering something wrong. I thought if I just said that enough, it would be true.” I swallowed hard, then continued. “It was better before, when I didn’t let myself think it had happened. Now that I have to talk about it, I feel yucky.”

“Was it? Daddy said that before you were hurting yourself and you got anxious a lot.”

“I don’t like talking about it.”

“That’s understandable. It was a bad, scary, awful thing that happened. It’s okay to not want to talk about it. The thing we need to figure out is why you don’t want to talk about it. Because sometimes, people don’t like to talk because they think they did something wrong.”

I sighed and laid down my crayon, looking up. “It’s never ever the kid’s fault. Grown ups should know better than to touch them,” I said in a sing song voice.

“You’ve heard that one before I take it?” Dr. Finnegan smiled at me.

“I know what I’m supposed to think. It just doesn’t make me feel any better,” making eye contact, I continued, “I recognize intellectually that I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just having difficulty feeling that way.”

She nodded at that, “it sounds like maybe I’m talking to the El that people see outside your house.”

“Because I don’t normally use words like intellectually in here?” I asked. “Dr. Ayers felt that the way I handled feelings that I didn’t want to acknowledge was to talk about them clinically.”

“What do you think?”

“I think Dr. Ayers was a bitch. And like, weirdly controlling. Like she was the one who decided when Mark was going to be in sessions with us.”

“That wasn’t okay.”

“I didn’t like it.”

“I can understand that. I wouldn’t like it if I was being forced to be someplace and the person who made me feel better wasn’t allowed to be there.”

Switching veins, I had something else I wanted to talk about. “I know what you’re doing when you ask me to draw pictures. Or play with dolls. I do this all the time with clients.”

“What do you think I’m doing?”

“It’s a trick. You’re trying to make me feel comfortable so I get involved with something and I talk with you without thinking. You’re pretty good at it,” I wouldn’t look at her. “Most people want to fill up the silence with words. That’s why kids don’t talk. Most adults talk too damn much; there’s no space for anybody else.”

“You’re kind of right. I’d like you to be comfortable in here, but it’s not a trick. I wouldn’t want to go in someplace new and just talk about bad stuff with someone I never met. I figure I’d want to know the person and feel like I had some control.”

“It’s not good to hate people.” I changed subjects again.

“Who says?”

I looked at her. That wasn’t the reaction I had expected. I shrugged. “I don’t know. You just aren’t supposed to.”

“Sometimes,” Dr. Finnegan was looking at the table, picking a crayon, “you need to hate somebody before you can start to feel better. Hating Daniel today doesn’t mean you always have to feel that way; it just means for right now that’s where you are. And that’s okay.”

I nodded, then focused on my picture, not talking. I could feel my eyes welling with tears, and I tried to ignore it, even as they dripped onto my picture.

“Can you tell me about what you’re coloring?” her voice was gentle.

“Trees,” I didn’t want to talk anymore. I was pressing down hard, scribbling. Dr. Finnegan laid her hand gently over mine.

“El, you’ve done such a good job today. Do you want Daddy now?”

I looked at the clock, “it’s not time yet. We have 10 more minutes.”

“I don’t need to know what time it is. We can finish the session alone, but we could also end early or just have him come in here. What would you like us to do?”

I stood up and left the room to get Daddy.

“Hey Princess! You done early?” he smiled at me.

“You come back now,” I told him, grabbing his hand and pulling. He got up and started walking toward the back, and I tucked myself against his side.

“She said I needed to come back,” Daddy said, standing in the doorway.

“I offered her a few options, and she decided to get you. Why don’t you both take a seat.” Dr. Finnegan gestured to the couch. When Daddy sat down, I sat half in his lap, resting my head against his chest. My hand kept drifting toward my mouth, but I didn’t want to suck my thumb in front of Dr. Finnegan.

Dr. Finnegan sat down in her normal chair, “El, would you like to talk with Daddy about what we did today?”

I shook my head no, closing my eyes and finally just giving in and letting myself suck. Daddy ran his fingers through my hair, and I kind of drifted, half listening.

“We talked about Daniel tonight,” Dr. Finnegan told Daddy.

I could feel movement which I assumed was Daddy nodding.

“I just wanted you to hear that so you knew if El had any trouble tonight. She did a lot of hard work today. Can you look at me please El?”

I shook my head no, keeping my eyes closed.

“El,” Daddy did not sound like he liked my answer to Dr. Finnegan.

“It’s okay. She’s done working for the night. I’ll see you both next week.”

Daddy tried to force me to stand up, but I didn’t want to. I just wanted to pretend I wasn’t there.

“Eleanor, you need to stand up. It’s time to go.”

I whined. Leaving the office meant taking my thumb out of my mouth and pretending to be a grown up, and I didn’t want to.

“Mark,” I heard Dr. Finnegan running interference again. “Why don’t we go into the hallway for a minute and give El a little time. We can talk until she’s ready to get up. Which I’m sure she will be in five minutes,” the last bit was clearly directed at me, and her tone had me convinced that she was likely a very good Mommy.

I waited until I heard the door shut before I opened my eyes and looked around. I wanted to find something to hurt myself with, but everything was soft. I stared at the wall for a minute, trying to figure out what to do, and then I raked my fingernails down my arm. It didn’t do much; Daddy made me keep them short now. So, I did it again and again, until I heard the door opening. Then I pulled my shirt sleeve down and looked up at Daddy.

“Are you ready to go now?” he asked me. I nodded; I felt more capable of keeping it together now, and we walked out of the office.

I felt pretty good about how I had handled things until bath time, when I realized Daddy was going to see my arms. Daddy was helping me undress, and I started crying when he pulled off my shirt.

“What’s the matt-” he paused, “Oh Sweetheart, when did this happen?” he ran a finger over the marks. I cried harder.

“I don’t want a spanking,” I wailed.

“El,” he sighed. “Tell me what happened.”

“I hurt myself.”

“When?” he had me sit down and began cutting my nails.

“When you and Dr. Finnegan were talking.”

“Ellie, look at me,” he waited until I made eye contact. “Why?”

“I was too full,” I whispered. I didn’t know how to explain to him how I had felt. “I just...I needed to go out and walk to the car and I couldn’t. I felt all this stuff pressing down. It was too much.”

“You talked about Daniel today.”

I nodded my head. “It was too hard Daddy. I don’t like therapy. I don’t wanna go anymore.”

“Hurting yourself is not the way to convince me you’re ready to stop going Princess.”

“I didn’t mean it,” I sniffled. “I just had to.”

Daddy sighed again, then finished taking off my clothes. “We’re going to go do your spanking now before I give you your bath.”

“No spanking,” I cried covering my backside, even as I followed him into the bedroom.

Seating himself on the bed, he pulled me over his lap, “why are we doing this Baby?”

“Because I’m bad,” I mumbled. I wanted to scratch my arms again.

He smacked my bottom once, hard. “Try again Princess.”

“I broke the rules,” I said, sniffling hard as I told him.

He gently stroked my bottom, “what rule Baby?”

“Not ‘llowed to hurt myself,” I whispered this, trying to relax.

“That’s right,” he spanked me with his hand. “You aren’t.” He laid down another smack, and then fell into a steady rhythm.

“You are not allowed to hurt yourself no matter what. Not ever. You can talk with me. You can talk with Dr. Finnegan. But you cannot hurt yourself.”

He stopped for a minute and gently patted my butt. Then I felt the spoon rest on my backside. He continued lecturing as he brought it down again and again.

“You have a lot of options here Eleanor. You can be sad or angry or however you want to feel. But you do not hurt yourself. It’s very very naughty, and this is going to happen every single time you make this bad choice. It has to stop Eleanor Rose. And if I have to spank you every single day for the next 20 years, that’s what I’ll do.”

I was sobbing as he continued spanking, and I finally started begging him.

“No. Daddy nooooo. I’m sorrry.” I kept crying and asking him to stop. Finally, I collapsed. He was never going to stop spanking me, and suddenly hurting myself didn’t seem like that good of an idea anymore.

He stopped spanking me and waited for me to calm down. Finally, he lifted me up on the bed and laid down next to me and watched me cry.

When I finally felt cried out, I watched him back. I reached out my hand and cupped his cheek, “I’m sorry.” He looked so sad.

He smiled at me. “I love you. You know that? And if I could fix this for you, I would.”

“I wish I wasn’t like this; I hate it.” I whispered. I was telling the truth. I loved Mark more than I loved anybody. And I felt like I was dragging him down.

“What are you thinking about?” Daddy was back to just looking sad.

“If I tell you, will I get in trouble?”

“I’d rather you tell me instead of just letting yourself think about it.”

“Yes or no.”

“No, I won’t punish you. Go on Princess, talk to me.”

“I love you,” I bit my lip, and tried to organize my thoughts. “I love you, and I wish you would leave.”

Daddy swallowed hard, “why do you wish I’d leave Baby?” He managed to keep his voice calm.

“I’m bad,” I stopped looking at him, looking up instead, and then sniffed hard, trying to stave off more tears. “I’m bad, and I make you sad. And I don’t want to.” I covered my face with my hands, trying not to cry. “You should be happy. I make everybody sad.”

“Baby, come here,” Daddy tugged me closer so I was tucked against his body. “Are you listening to me?”

I nodded my head, face still covered.

“It makes me sad that you’re sad. It makes me sad that you hurt yourself tonight. But you never make me sad. You make me happy. Always. Do you understand?”

I nodded again, moving my hands from my face so I could hug him.

“And I’m not leaving ever. So you might as well stop asking me to.”

We lay there in silence for a while. Finally, Daddy started talking again. “Are you ready to take a bath?”

“I’m tired.”

“You need to take a bath Princess. You’re sticky from crying.”

I nodded, and Daddy rolled off the bed and stood up. I held my arms out to be carried, squirming when I felt pressure on my bottom.

“Not too hot,” I mumbled into his neck.

“No, not too hot,” Daddy was gentle during my bath. He kept the water cool and didn’t talk much. We finished quickly, and Daddy picked me up again and carried me into the bedroom.

He had grabbed the bandages, and he began wrapping my arm. “I know how this is wrapped. I don’t want to see it messed with. Understand?”

“Are you mad?” I asked.

“I don’t like it when you hurt yourself, but I’m not mad.”

“I’m sorry,” I told him again.

“I know. You’re sorry,” he ran his thumb over my cheek. “I wish you would think about that when you get sad though Baby. Before you hurt yourself.”

I nodded silently, and he pulled my nightgown over my head. He pulled the blankets down and gestured for me to climb in.

“Can we rock?” I asked him.

“Do you want to read a story while we rock?” He held the book we’d been reading together.

I shook my head, “I just want to rock for a while.”

He picked me up and reached for Stella. “Stella too?”

I shook my head again, and relaxed against Daddy. He walked over to the chair and we sat together, my thumb drifting toward my mouth.

“Are we talking?” he asked after several minutes.

I shook my head again. I just wanted quiet.

He gently stroked my back and we rocked quietly for a while. Finally, I was ready to talk again  
“Sometimes, I wish I was dead.”

“Things are really hard right now,” Daddy was trying to be sympathetic, but I could hear the strain in his voice.

“It just feels like they won’t ever get better Daddy. I don’t remember being happy. I can’t remember how it feels.”

“Have you thought about how?”

“I wouldn’t kill myself. I’ve thought about it, but it’s messy. There aren’t any good methods. I just wish I’d go to sleep and not wake up.”

“It’s getting better Princess. Right now, it’s really hard, but you’re still doing better then you were even last month.”

“It’s too hard Daddy. It’s too much. I just don’t want to deal with it anymore. I try to think about what it’s going to be like next week or next year, and I don’t see any end.”

“I know that’s how it feels right now El, but it will get better. And even if you can’t remember being happy, I remember you being happy. It will happen again; you just need to keep going to therapy and taking your medication, and things will get better.”

“What if they don’t?”

“They will. Are you ready to lie down now?”

I nodded my head, and he carried me to the bed to tuck me in.

I wanted to believe him. So much. I wanted to think that I was capable of getting better, but I felt like this was all there had ever been. I wasn’t exaggerating; I genuinely could not remember what it felt like for things to be different. I couldn’t see any end to it. I was tired, and if I could come up with a way to kill myself that I knew would work and wouldn’t leave a huge mess for Mark, I would have done it.

People think that suicide is selfish; wanting to kill myself was probably the least selfish thing I had been doing lately. I didn’t want to put him through this anymore. He rearranged his entire life to take care of me, and I was awful.

“You don’t know that they’ll get better.” I finally told him.

“I do. I know everything. That’s why I’m in charge.”

I rolled onto my side, not able to face him and talk. “I don’t believe you,” I whispered.


	3. Chapter 3

I was panicking, laying there with her. She said she didn’t have a plan, but she sounded so hopeless. Finally, I decided that I would just have to call Dr. Finnegan’s emergency service. I may be overreacting, but I didn’t want to not call and have her do something.

Apparently, Dr. Finnegan took it seriously enough; she called me within 10 minutes. I sat myself in the hallway outside the bedroom, keeping the door cracked to watch El sleep, and making sure my voice was low.

“What’s going on Mark?” Dr. Finnegan’s voice was low, soothing. I understood why El found her office calming.

“She hurt herself again,” I swallowed hard. “She said she wishes she was dead; I don’t know what to do with her.”

“Where is she now?”

“Sleeping. I just...she says she doesn’t have a plan. Maybe I’m overreacting.”

“I’d rather have you overreact than underreact. I need you to walk me through what happened.”

“She was quiet after therapy. When I gave her a bath, I noticed that she had carved up her arms with her fingernails. I cut her nails and then spanked her. We cuddled for a while, and she told me she wished I would leave because she makes me sad. I tried to tell her that she was wrong, but...I gave her bath. We rocked for a while; she didn’t want to read a story. She didn’t even want Stella. While we were rocking, she told me she wished she was dead. She said that she doesn’t remember what being happy was like.” I was surprised by how short I could make the night; it had seemed to take forever.

“Okay. Thank you. What do you want to do now?”

“I don’t know.”

“There’s a day treatment program. Or we could try in-patient.”

“I have no fucking clue what I’m doing here. I’m terrified that I’m going to make the wrong call and she’s going to kill herself. Tell me what to do. Please. What would you do?”

“It doesn’t work that way. You and El have to make the decision.”

“I have no idea what I should do though.”

“Alright. Come in tomorrow. I think we need to go over your options; I will tell you, El probably needs to put in for FMLA. I don’t see her being able to work and get treatment. I can write out the paperwork for her tomorrow.”

“She isn’t going to like that,” I said.

“At the moment, I’m less concerned with what she’s going to like and what we need to do to keep her safe. And part of that is going to depend on you Mark. You need to be willing to deal with her getting upset. She’s not going to be happy with you, and you need to prepare yourself for that.”

“I’m okay with her getting mad. She gets angry at me all the time anyway; if it means she feels better, I can deal with it.”

“It’s not just going to be anger though. She’s going to cry; she’s going to beg you to let her come home or not go to treatment. And when you don’t fold, she’s going to be angry with you. And she’s probably going to be mean.”

I nodded my head at that, “I can handle that.”

“Alright then. I’ll see you both at 9:00 AM tomorrow. Okay?”

“Yes, thank you.” I told Dr. Finnegan good bye, and then hung up my phone. I sat in the hallway for a moment, staring at the bedroom door, then forced myself up and into bed.

It didn’t really do much of anything. I couldn’t sleep; I lay awake all night watching her. I was terrified that if I let myself drift off I’d wake up to find her gone.

El finally started stirring around 7:00 AM. It was early for her; the alarm wouldn’t go off for another 45 minutes. I smiled at her when she turned to me.

“Hi Princess.”

“It’s creepy to watch people sleep,” she mumbled, burrowing against me.

“You need to call off today.” I decided to just tell her now.

“No. I gotta go in Daddy.”

“No. Sorry Princess. I scheduled an emergency session with Dr. Finnegan.”

That woke her up. She pulled away from me and glared. “I need to go to work.”

“No. We’re going to see Dr. Finnegan. Call your boss and let her know you can’t come in.”

“I’m fine,” she protested angrily.

I focused on remaining calm and firm, “you need to call your boss and tell her you need the day. Now please.” I reached over her for the phone and handed it to her.

“No!” she yelled, trying to roll off the bed and storm off.

“Hey, I don’t think so,” I grabbed her arm and held her on the bed. I could do this. I knew how to handle this part of it, the angry temper tantrum throwing little girl that I saw all the time. “You don’t tell Daddy no, and you don’t run off when you don’t like the rules. Now, I’m going to ask you one more time to call your boss; if you don’t feel like you can do it, then you’re going to need to go wait in a corner until you’re ready.”

She crossed her arms, staring at the ceiling, clearly trying to project that she was not listening.

“El, do I need to count? Your choices right now are calling work or waiting in time out until you’re ready to call work. If I don’t see that phone going up to your ear by the time I get to three, I’ll help you to time out.”

Help was a euphemism that I knew she knew meant I would spank her. “One.”

I watched, not a movement.

“Two. Eleanor Rose, you aren’t going to win this.”

I waited for a moment, hoping she would do as she was told, “alright Princess, that’s three.” I got up off the bed and pulled her along with me, smacking her bottom every step of the way to the corner. “You can wait here until you’re ready to call work.”

El’s Point of View

I stood in the corner, crying quietly. I was frustrated. “You said you wouldn’t punish me for telling you what I was thinking about.”

“You are not being punished right now. You are standing there until you’re ready to do what I asked you to. You’re the one who controls when you get out of time out.”

“I’m not taking the day off,” I told him.

“You are actually. And if you want to spend the day in the corner, then that’s what we’re going to do. And then you’ll take tomorrow off to see Dr. Finnegan.”

I clenched my hands into fists and focused on not stomping my feet.

“Fine. I’ll take the day off,” I finally spat out.

“Thank you. You can call work as soon as you’re ready to be done with time out; I need to see your bad attitude gone first,” Daddy paused, and then continued, clearly knowing where this was going, “and if I have to come over there because you’re stomping or kicking, you’re going to get a real spanking before your appointment.”

I turned around and glared at him, “I’m ready to come out now.”

“I can see that. Turn back around,” Daddy was sitting in a chair, pretending to read.

“I know you’re not really reading,” I grumbled.

“If I have to come over there to remind you about the time out rules, I’m going to help you remember. First though, you’re going to lose your pajama bottoms.”

I stood still, staring at the wall. I could outlast him. I had an amazing imagination. I was going to stand here, and I was going to think. Because I was awesome that way.

I could practically feel tumbleweeds rolling through my brain. Where the hell were all my amazing ideas? I was used to having my mind going 16 different directions at once. Now all I could think about was how much I hated the corner.

I sighed. He had won. “I’m sorry I had an attitude problem.”

“Come’ere,” I heard Daddy put down his book, and I turned to walk to him. He pulled me into his lap. “I know you’re upset about missing work, but you need to go talk to Dr. Finnegan Sweetheart.”

I sighed, relaxed against him. “It just doesn’t do anything.”

“I’ll make a deal with you: you have to miss work, that’s non-negotiable. But you can pick anything you want to do after we finish with Dr. Finnegan. How does that sound?”

“Technically,” I tried for levity, “a deal implies that I have the right to reject it. This is really more of a bribe to get me to behave. Which I will accept, but only because I might as well get something out of it. Pretty much every parenting expert is giving you shame face right now.”

“El, we have sex. I’m pretty sure parenting experts are anti-this relationship. At least I hope they are.”

I snorted at that.

“See?” Daddy hugged me, “I knew you were still in there.”

I quieted, remembering why we were sitting together instead of rushing around getting ready for work, “When’s my appointment?”

“9:00. So, we should take a shower and have some breakfast. Waffles?”

“It’s one to one again?” I asked quietly.

Daddy cocked his head and looked at me; I sighed. Sometimes I forgot he didn’t get work terms. “One to one is what we do with kids who can’t be left alone. They get a designated adult to watch them all the time so they don’t do something really bad. You said a shower, not showers.”

Daddy nodded, “for right now.”

“Because you don’t trust me,” my eyes were filling up with tears, and my voice was shaky.

“No. I don’t trust your bad feelings because they make you think that doing something to hurt yourself will make you feel better. They’re persuasive that way,” he smiled at me, handing me my phone so I could text Sarah that I wasn’t coming in.

I nodded, trying not to cry, and Daddy carried me into the bathroom. He made me stay in the shower with him again, but it was better than the last time; I wasn’t being bratty this time. I just felt tired now.

I was towed around behind Daddy all morning. I had to sit on the bathmat and watch him shave, and then I was taken into the bedroom and helped to dress. I hated it, but it was too much work to argue.

When we were ready, Daddy took me to the kitchen and made me sit at the counter. I wanted to just lay my head down and not think, but he turned on my lamp and handed me a mandala. “I want you to color for me while I make breakfast. Waffles? I think we have pumpkin waffles.”

I let myself rest on the counter, not looking at him. “I don’t want to color,” I mumbled.

“I don’t recall asking what you wanted. Go on now. You can either color or you can hang out in the corner until breakfast.”

I sighed, forcing myself up. I would color, but it was going to be really ugly. Focusing on the colored pencils, I began picking the most hideous colors I could. I put my thumb in my mouth and started coloring. I was so intent on the picture that I didn’t even realize when Daddy sat down next to me with waffles.

“Thumb out Princess. Time for breakfast,” he gently tugged my thumb away from my mouth and slid a plate over with a waffle on it. He had sliced up a banana on top of the waffle, and he handed me a glass of orange juice as well.

I stared dully at the waffle. I knew that I needed to lift the knife and fork, but it seemed like too much work. “I’m not hungry,” I told him.

“Didn’t ask if you were Princess.”

“I’m not being naughty Daddy. I really just don’t want to eat,” I stared at him beseechingly. Daddy pulled my plate away and began quickly cutting the waffle up.

“Drink your juice,” he told me. When I lifted the glass to my mouth, I ended up spilling juice on myself, and then I started to cry.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Daddy grabbed a dishtowel and dabbed gently at the juice. “No big deal. We can fix it Baby.”

“Everything sucks,” I whimpered.

“I know that’s how it feels right now,” Daddy picked up my glass of juice and carried it to the other side of the kitchen. I watched as he pulled out the stupid sippy cup and transferred the juice from my glass to the cup.

When he got back to me, he picked up both plates and laid them on his arm. Carrying the plates to the table, he settled them down, and then came back to get me. “Come here,” he said softly, picking me up and carrying me over. When he sat down, he settled me onto his lap and lifted a fork to my lips.

I whined and turned my head away, “I said I’m not hungry; why aren’t you listening?”

“I am listening. I also know that you need to eat. Open up,” Daddy’s voice was no nonsense, and I opened my mouth and ate like he told me to. He alternated bites between us until I’d eaten ⅔ of a waffle.

“No more. Please Daddy?”

“Okay. Drink your juice though.” He handed me my sippy cup along with my pill, and I began to drink. Daddy ate the rest of his waffle and mine, and then he carried me to the living room, not bothering to clean up.

“I think we should cuddle for a bit before therapy. What do you think?”

“I don’t care,” I said, forcing myself to continue sipping the juice. He settled us into a chair, and we sat silently for a while.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked me.

“If I say no, are you still gonna make me go?”

He smiled at me, “We have to go Baby. Do you want to take Stella?”

I looked at him. We didn’t do anything in public that people would be able to tell about us, but I kinda wanted Stella. I nodded slowly. He walked us back up to the bedroom and grabbed Stella. She did make me feel better as I hugged her.

I did insist on leaving the sippy cup at home and walking to the car myself, but I sat in the front seat hugging Stella tightly all the way to Dr. Finnegan’s.

When we got there, I sat in my usual spot in the waiting room. I had curled myself up next to Daddy, and I was stroking Stella’s foot. I wanted to put my thumb in my mouth, but I abstained. I was staring off into space, and I started when Dr. Finnegan knelt next to me and laid a hand on my knee.

I pulled back, wrapping my arms around myself, “don’t touch,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Finnegan’s voice was kind. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I heard you had a rough night.”

I nodded slowly, my eyes filling up with tears yet again. I was so sick of crying.

“Why don’t we try going back to my office to talk a little bit about what we do next,” Dr. Finnegan stood up.

“You too,” I looked at Daddy.

“Of course,” he told me, standing up and taking my hand.

When we got back to the office itself, we sat down. I felt like I had the first time we’d been there, raw and scared and like I just wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. I didn’t want to talk anymore.

“El, your Daddy and I wanted to have an extra session this week because of what happened after we talked yesterday. Can you tell me about that?”

I shook my head no. I was done talking.

“I’m afraid that wasn’t a request Eleanor,” Dr. Finnegan’s voice had changed, and I looked up at her in surprise. That was not the tone I had come to expect from my gentle therapist who generally encouraged Daddy to let me move at my own pace. This was the person that Dr. Finnegan must be like with her little girl, and I was suddenly very glad that she was not my mommy.

“I don’t want to,” I said.

“I understand that, but we need to. We talked about Daniel last night, and then what happened?”

I buried my face against Daddy’s shoulder. I didn’t want to be here.

Daddy moved his shoulder and forced me to sit up, “I’m staying in here Baby, but you need to answer Dr. Finnegan’s questions.”

I glared at him; I felt betrayed. “I hurt myself,” I told her, still staring at Daddy.

“Can you tell me why?”

“Because I wanted to.”

“Daddy said you wish you were dead.”

I felt tears spilling down my cheek, and I simply nodded this time.

“I don’t think that twice weekly therapy is enough for you right now,” Dr. Finnegan’s voice was back to her usual gentle tone, but I tensed at those words.

“You promised you wouldn’t send me away,” I told Daddy. I clutched Stella to my chest, and I rocked a little.

I felt Daddy’s arms encircling me, “I’m not sending you away. We need to talk about what we’re going to do Baby. Therapy isn’t cutting it.”

Dr. Finnegan broke in, “we can try day treatment or in-patient.”

“I can’t just do that,” I told her. “I have work.”

“You need to take FMLA,” she said.

“I can’t.”

Daddy hugged me tightly, “this is exactly why we have FMLA. So that sick people can feel better.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I know,” Dr. Finnegan told me. “Do you want to try day treatment first? We can always escalate to in-patient if we need to.”

“I don’t want to,” I hiding my face against Stella.

“I know that. Day treatment or in patient?” Dr. Finnegan’s voice was gentle, but she had taken on that tone that Daddy used; the one that told me that I wasn’t going to win.

“No,” I told her stubbornly. They couldn’t make me go into treatment.

“Eleanor, if I have to, I will sign the paperwork to do an involuntary commitment. I don’t want to do that, but I will. So I need you to make a decision.”

I started crying in earnest; I was tired. I was sick of all of this, and the idea of going to day treatment, let alone in-patient, was just too much.

“Do you think that day treatment would be enough?” I heard Daddy ask Dr. Finnegan.

“Maybe. I think so. El’s been doing really hard work in here; I think that maybe if it’s all she has to think about, that might be enough.”

“What’s the next step?”

I shook my head no, still pressing my face into Stella. “No, I don’t want to,” I cried.

Daddy’s hand was gentle on my back, stroking. “I know. But you have to.”

“Noooooooooo,” I whined.

“Yes. I’m making this decision now. I’m sorry you’re unhappy with it, but unless you want to go in-patient, I’m saying you have to go to the day treatment program.”

I pushed my face against Daddy now, burying my head in his lap as I cried. Mostly, I was angry and scared, but there was a little part of me that felt relieved. Knowing I didn’t have to make the decision, knowing it was out of my hands...it made things easier.

I blocked out what they were saying then, too involved with my own misery at the moment to pay attention. I cried for a while, then finally quieted. Even then, they weren’t done. I curled into a ball, facing away from Dr. Finnegan and still half-on Daddy’s lap. Sliding my thumb into my mouth, I let myself drift off, back to the place that I had found when Daniel used to hurt me. It was easier to feel nothing right now.


	4. Chapter 4

Dr. Finnegan had filled out the paperwork and sent it to my HR department and to the program she wanted me to go to. I hadn’t paid attention to their conversation, and when they were finished Daddy took me home. I was scheduled to begin the next day.

He tried to convince me to do something, offering the movies or shopping. He even said that he would take me to the aquarium if I wanted. I didn’t feel like doing anything. We just went home and lounged around the house.

Daddy wouldn’t let me go back to bed, insisting that I play with my toys. I sat in front of my blocks for a while, holding a my little pony in one hand. I finally put her down and stood up, wandering over the couch where Daddy was watching me. I sat down next to him and rested my head in his lap.

Daddy ran his fingers through my hair. “Bored?” he asked me.

I shook my head no.

“Hungry? I’ll make you a grilled cheese if you’d like? Or, I think we have macaroni and cheese.”

“Macaroni,” I mumbled, my thumb in my mouth.

“Okay. Come on, I need help,” he led me into the kitchen.

Liar. I sat on my stool, the stupid lamp on, watching as he moved around the kitchen, making me lunch. When he put the bowl in front of me, I forced myself to eat.

Halfway through my lunch, I didn’t have the energy anymore. I pushed the bowl away from me and rested my head on my arms. I was finding life exhausting.

“Full Baby?” Daddy’s voice was soft, and he came to stand behind me. I leaned back against him.

“I’m tired.”

“Are you still hungry?” Mark knew that me avoiding a question generally meant that I knew he wouldn’t like my answer.

I nodded my head yes reluctantly. The idea of having to move the spoon from the bowl to my mouth seemed a monumental task, far better suited to someone else. It was a relief when Daddy settled next to me and picked up the spoon, holding it to my mouth.

I chewed and swallowed obediently. I felt the same relief I’d had earlier when Daddy had told me that he was making the decision; I didn’t feel like I could figure out whether I was hungry or what I needed to do. It was so much simpler just to let him do it.

I finished the bowl and drank the juice Daddy gave me, and then he led me back out to the living room, where we cuddled together on the couch.

“Movie?”

“Don’t care,” I whispered around my thumb.

“Why don’t we watch Ratatouille?”

I nodded. He wasn’t going to leave me alone until I gave him something. While the movie played, I drifted in and out. I fell asleep less than half way through the film, and he mercifully let me rest.

I don’t know how long I slept, but when he finally shook me awake, I was in bed. He must have transferred me there at some point. I think maybe he slept with me, but I wasn’t sure.

He made me go into the kitchen to eat dinner, which he fed me again, and then prodded me through our usual nighttime rituals. After we finished dinner, he gave me a bath, and then he carried me around the house while he checked the doors and windows. He gave me a bottle with warm milk; we normally would read, but I just wanted to rock in the chair together.

I fell asleep in his lap, and I slept like a stone through the night. He had to shake me awake again, and then he forced me through getting up and dressed. He offered me Stella on our way out the door, and I shook my head this time. If I was going to have to spend time with these people, I didn’t want them to know about Daddy. About me...

The facility wasn’t far from the house, and I made it almost all the way there before I cracked.

“Please don’t make me go,” I begged him quietly, “I’ll be good.”

“This isn’t a punishment Princess,” he told me. “You need to go someplace to help you feel better. If you weren’t so sad right now, you would know that.” His voice was steady.

“I don’t want to go.”

“I know Baby. But it’s just during the day. You’ll go to treatment while I’m at work, and then I’ll come and get you when I’m done. Then we’ll go home. Just like usual. It’s just while I’m at work,” Daddy sounded reassuring, but he didn’t know. He had never been to a mental hospital. I didn’t know how I could get better someplace where I had to lie about who I was. How was I supposed to explain that I was there because my Daddy had forced me to go? How was I supposed to tell people that the reason that I was driven to and from every day was because Daddy didn’t trust me to be by myself?

We got there sooner than I liked, and Daddy was quiet but unrelenting as he opened my car door and propelled me through the doors. He walked me to the front desk and checked me in.

When everything was done, I couldn’t let go of his hand. I was clutching it so tightly that I could feel the bones in his hand shifting. He finally led me to a chair to give me a little privacy as we talked.

“I’m going to go to work, and then I’ll come back. It’s just 9 hours Baby. Then I’ll come get you, and we can go home. Or we could go out to eat. Do you want to go get tacos?”

I shook my head no; my motions felt spasmodic. “Don’t go. Please?” I whispered to him, refusing to let go.

Daddy kept trying to calm me down, even as I felt my anxiety increasing. I couldn’t let go of his hand and let him leave. If he left me there, he would never come back. This was some sort of trick to get rid of me. I was too much work; why would he keep me around?

I kept whispering, “I’m sorry I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I’ll be good. You don’t have to leave me here. I promise I’ll be good.”

Daddy finally hugged me to him and rocked slowly. “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to stay here while I’m at work, and then I’ll come and get you. I promise that I’ll come back.”

I felt someone squat next to my chair and put a hand on my shoulder. I tensed. Then I heard a familiar voice, “El, I know this is scary, but it’s just for the day. I need you to let go of Daddy now so that you can come with me, and he can go to work. Understand? So give him one last hug, and then we’re going to go to group.”

I hadn’t expected Dr. Finnegan to be there; I maybe should have paid more attention at therapy the day before. My fingers were laced together behind Daddy’s neck, and I couldn’t make myself let go. I shook my head no.

“Yes. You’re going to give Daddy a hug and a kiss, and then you’re going to say good bye so we can go do some work before he gets back. If you need to call him later, we can do that. But I need you to come to group first.” Dr. Finnegan’s voice was pretty firm, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t let Daddy leave me here.

“Mark, I need you to tell her good bye and leave. It isn’t going to get any easier for her if you stay and let her get worked up. El, Daddy’s leaving now. I don’t want to have to hold you while he leaves; I think that you can control yourself well enough that it isn’t necessary. So I need you to show me that so that I don’t need to.”

Daddy’s hands reached behind his neck and unlaced my fingers. He kissed me quickly. “I’ll be back to get you at 5:30. I love you; have a good day.” I watched as he stood up and walked out. I wanted to chase after him, but I was afraid that Dr. Finnegan wasn’t bluffing. I didn’t want to be restrained.

Instead, I wrapped my arms tightly around myself and rocked a little. I tried to remain calm; I couldn’t cry in front of these people I didn’t know. If I let myself fall apart, I wouldn’t be able to make myself stop.

“El,” Dr. Finnegan’s voice broke through again. “We’re going to stand up and go do some work now. Come on. It’s going to be fine.” She held my hand and led me down the hallway to a room with half a dozen other people. Most of them were older than I was, but not by much.

“This is Eleanor. She likes to be called El. Today is El’s first day at treatment, and I know everyone is going to try to make it easy for her.” Dr. Finnegan led me to a chair, and then she sat next to me. “Does anyone have something to share today?”

A man seated across from me raised his hand. “He’s making me visit his mother this weekend,” he complained.

I sat quietly, thinking about Daddy coming back and leaving.

“Why does he want to visit his mother this weekend?” Dr. Finnegan asked calmly.

“It’s her stupid birthday.”

I furrowed my brow. That seemed like a legitimate reason to see your significant other’s family.

The man continued, “I’m sick of him bossing me around and treating me like I can’t stay home alone.”

The woman sitting next to him chimed in, “isn’t that kind of what we signed up for? The bossing around I mean. It’s not like I love it when mine tells me that I have to do something that I don’t want to, but that’s the deal. We agreed.”

I looked up at that, watching everyone closely. There were several more veiled allusions to unconventional relationships, but I was afraid to ask. If I was wrong, and they weren’t saying what I thought, then everyone would know about me.

I was silent throughout group, watching carefully but not contributing. Afterwards, Dr. Finnegan took me back to another room.

“This is where we’ll do individual therapy. Let’s talk about what your day’s going to be like.”

I nodded, waiting to hear.

“Are we going to go back to you not talking?” she asked me gently.

I looked at her, not sure of how to answer. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. I just wanted to be allowed to leave, and I was terrified that if I said something bad that I would have to go to in-patient. I finally shook my head no. “I just don’t have anything to say yet,” I mumbled.

“Okay. I just wanted to know. So, your day,” she paused, smiling at me, “we’re going to start in group every morning, at 9:00. Group takes an hour in the morning. Then you’ll come to individual therapy with me for 90 minutes. After that, it’s time for art therapy with a social worker for another hours. We have lunch at 12:30. At 1:30, we’ll go back to group therapy for 90 minutes. Then, your day is going to vary. Sometimes you’ll have more time with me, some days you’ll do yoga or guided meditation, and some days you’ll have more art therapy or you’ll work independently.

“What did they mean? That we’ve agreed to it?” I managed to ask the question that I’d been afraid to ask in group therapy.

Dr. Finnegan smiled at me. “Some of the people here have mommies and daddies. Some of them are in domestic discipline relationships. We sometimes have people here who are in Master/slave relationships.”

I looked at her, kind of shocked. I hadn’t realized there were enough crazy people like me to create an entire treatment program.

“There’s a separate program for people who identify as tops, but switches end up having to make a choice,” she continued on.

“Do people here know about me?” I asked.

“What?”

“About Mark.”

“I haven’t explicitly told them anything, but it’s understood that you’re in the same kind of relationship. We vet people pretty carefully before they’re admitted.”

I nodded at that.

“So, are you ready to get to work?”

“How long?” I asked the question that I should have asked the day before in her office.

“It takes however long it takes El. I can’t give you an estimate because it could be a month and it could be six. I don’t know.”

“FMLA is only for 12 weeks. I can’t not go back to work.”

“How about you worry about following the program and getting better, and we’ll worry about work when we get to the 12 week point. If we get there while you’re still here.”

I didn’t like that. It stressed me out. But, it’s not like I had a lot of choices. I might as well work.

So I did. We had a relatively normal therapy session; this time we focused more on how to express to Daddy that I was upset when I had a hard time at therapy rather than hurting myself.

During art therapy, I drew on my own arms rather than making a picture; the man who had been complaining at group therapy (Tom, bipolar, Daddy was an accountant who had forced him to enter treatment like me), pointed this out to the social worker.

“She’s drawing on herself.”

I looked up, panicked. Dr. Finnegan and Daddy had encouraged it as a more “appropriate” way of expressing frustration and upset.

Karen, the social worker, admonished him, “Tom, you need to focus on your own art please.”

I relaxed back into my chair, writing on my arms with a red marker. Once my left arm was covered, I wanted to write on my right arm, but I couldn’t figure out how.

Mia, (GAD and Depression, partner’s name was Lisa), who had been talking quietly with me throughout art therapy noticed my problem. “Do you need help?”

I nodded hesitantly. I didn’t want her to think I was dumb.

“Dr. Finnegan has these things I’m supposed to think instead of the stuff on my left arm. I figured I’d write those on my right arm, but I’m right handed.”

“I have good handwriting,” she offered. “She had me do the same thing, but mine was all in a journal.”

“No self-injury then?” I asked.

“Nope. Just your run of the mill refusal to get out of bed,” Mia smiled at me as she took the proffered blue marker. “What am I writing?”

As I went over the the replacement statements we had worked on in therapy, I relaxed a little. Having someone else touch me was always hard, but Mia moved slowly, and she told me what she was going to do before she did it.

“What do you do when you’re not here?” I asked her.

She smiled at that. “Special ed teacher. I work with EI kids with a specialization in autism. You?”

That explained it, “social worker, with foster kids.”

She focused on writing on me. At the end of the first statement, Mia carefully sketched out a flower. She doodled with each mantra, and my right arm was significantly more colorful and decorated than my left.

“Do you like ravioli?” she asked me.

I wasn’t sure where that had come from, but I responded in the affirmative, “uh huh.”

“It’s Thursday. Thursday’s ravioli day. Friday is pizza; it’s normally pretty good. The food is decent here; way better than at the last program my Mommy sent me to.”

“This is your second?”

She nodded, “out-patient at least. I was in-patient for a while after the first day treatment; ECT,” she made a face at that.

Karen knelt next to us and laid a hand on my knee, “El, Mia, it’s time to go eat lunch. Please put the markers away.” I tensed when she touched me, and my breathing quickened. Karen seemed oblivious to it, and she simply moved away while I tried to calm myself.

Once I’d managed to convince myself everything was fine, I realized Mia was watching me with a sympathetic expression. “You want to know a secret?” she asked casually.

I nodded, somewhat guarded, but curious.

“They do that shit on purpose. They’re trying to get you to say that you don’t like it. If you tell Karen that you don’t want to be touched, she’ll respect it. It’s like some sort of fucked up grown up test.”

“Grown up test?”

“Who better to run a treatment program for us than people in the lifestyle? Karen’s got a partner that I think she must just spank; she doesn’t tend to go in for the coddling you normally see with mommies. Lucy, the woman who does yoga and dance, she’s got a little girl like us at home. They don’t talk about it a lot, but gossip...” Mia drifted off.

That made sense. Damn, I had no idea there were so many of us.

“Do you want to eat lunch with me?” Mia asked, changing the subject.

I smiled and nodded. Being the new kid in the cafeteria still sucks, even if you’re not really a kid. Plus, Mia seemed to have a pretty good handle on how everything worked.

She kind of stayed with me the rest of the day. When we worked semi-independently, she managed to score what she referred to as “the good chairs.” Which were admittedly comfortable. She seemed used to the environment, curling up into the armchair with her journal and a baby blanket that she rubbed against her lip as she thought.

I looked at her enviously. I wanted Stella. I tried to focus on my journal, writing out the assignment that Dr. Finnegan had given me. I finished pretty quickly, and Mia and I drew more when we were done.

By the time Daddy had gotten there, we were chatting and even giggling a bit. I’d never met another person like me. Not in real-life at least. When Daddy got there, I didn’t even notice because I was so engrossed in our conversation.

He leaned over me and hugged. I immediately relaxed back against him, feeling at home. “You ready to go Princess?” he asked me.

I nodded, standing up and starting to put markers away.

“Don’t worry. Mine won’t get here until 6:00; I’ll do it.”

I looked at her for a minute, feeling badly about leaving her with the mess, but she waved me off. “Go, go home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Kay,” I said uncertainly. “Bye Mia.”

Daddy took my hand as we walked out. “She seems nice.”

I nodded.

“Did you meet anyone else?”

“Uh huh. But I liked her best,” I leaned into Daddy, yawning a little as I said it.

“Long day Princess?” he hugged me to his side.

I nodded again, “can we just get carry out? I want to go home.”

Daddy agreed, and we stopped to pick up tacos on the way home. Daddy asked a few more questions about my day, which I answered. It hadn’t been as bad as I had thought it would be, and I was actually kind of excited to see Mia again the next day. Plus, she said Lucy came on Fridays and we’d get to do yoga.

After dinner, Daddy helped me take my bath. His gaze lingered on my arms. The scratches from the other day on my left arm had started to heal, and I’d taken the bandage off so I could draw. My eyes widened when I realized that I hadn’t bothered asking first.

“I didn’t do anything,” I told him, not liking the idea of another spanking.

“You’re not supposed to take the bandages off though, are you Baby?”

“I forgot,” I told him. “It’s not fair to spank me for forgetting. Plus, I didn’t hurt myself, see?” I lifted my arms and turned them. “It was an accident Daddy; I don’t want a spanking.”

He smiled at me, “you never want a spanking Princess,” holding my hand, he helped me settle into the tub.

I nodded at that, yawning again, “but this time it wouldn’t be fair Daddy,” I told him, emphasizing fair. “Spankings are for doing something bad.”

Daddy gestured for me to tilt my head back so he could wash my hair. “I’ll tell you what. No spanking this time since you didn’t hurt yourself. But you need to work on remembering better Baby.”

“Kay,” I said, looking at both of my arms.

“Did Mia do those?” he asked, gently touching my right arm.

“Uh huh. I couldn’t write on that arm.”

He finished lathering my hair and had me tilt my head again while he poured warm water to rinse. I sighed in contentment. Having my hair washed felt awesome.

When I opened my eyes again, Daddy was staring at me, smiling.

“What?” I asked self-consciously.

“Nothing, I’m just glad to see you relaxed,” he said, picking up conditioner.

“Can we watch a movie?” I asked, playing with my plastic animals. “I wanna watch Sound of Music,” I told him.

“Not the whole movie. But we can watch a little.”

“No Daddy,” I shook my head, looking at him, “I wanna watch all of it.”

“Not tonight Baby. Tomorrow’s Friday; maybe we can finish it then. Tilt your head back,” he rinsed the conditioner out and then grabbed a bar of soap.

“I want to watch all of it,” I told him stubbornly, “I don’t like stopping halfway through.”

“I understand that. I’m saying no. You can either watch part of it tonight or none. And I’m not going to argue with you Baby Girl. If you keep complaining, then it’s no TV at all.” Daddy was washing my back while he talked to me, and I jerked away, irritated.

“That’s not fair Daddy,” I began.

“I guess you’re picking no television tonight then,” he said calmly. “Stop wiggling everywhere.”

“I want to watch the movie!” I told him, outraged.

“No. You made a bad choice; I said no more arguing about it. If you want no TV for the weekend and a bedtime spanking, you can go ahead and keep fighting with me.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, pouting.

“I think I have a sleepy baby,” Daddy said, as he calmly finished washing my body.

“No,” I said.

“No? You’re acting like it might be bedtime.”

“I am not,” I said, my mood pretty sour.

“Come on, out of the tub,” he held out his hand.

“It’s not bedtime yet Daddy,” I told him. “I’m not tired.”

“It’s time to get out of the bathtub please.”

Stupid implacable Daddy. I stood up, sighing deeply. Daddy wrapped me into a fluffy towel and led me into the bedroom where he brushed and braided my hair and rubbed lotion into my skin. I hated going to bed, but I loved having this time with him. By the time he helped me into my pajamas, I was yawning and rubbing at my eyes.

“Bed now Baby,” Daddy’s voice was quiet as he led me over to the bed and turned down the covers.

“Wanna rock Daddy,” I told him, “and milk.”

“Okay,” he said, carrying me down to the kitchen and making a bottle of warm milk. I clutched Stella while he washed up, and then he carried me back up to our room. We rocked for a while as he fed me my bottle.

“Mia brought her blanket today,” I mumbled, nipple in my mouth.

“Hmmm. Do you think Stella wants to go with you tomorrow?”

I nodded sleepily, finishing the bottle.

“Bedtime Baby,” he whispered, picking me up. I wanted to tell him that I hadn’t fallen asleep yet, but I didn’t, too comfortable as he carried me to bed and cuddled against me.

The next morning, Daddy woke me up. “Come on Baby. Time to get up. What do you want to wear today?”

I moaned and shoved my head under the pillow, “tired Daddy.”

Daddy pulled my pillow away from me, “up.”

I whined, not wanting to leave the warm cocoon of blankets.

“Princess, you need to get up now,” I felt Daddy sit next to me, his hand warm and heavy on my back. “It’s time to get dressed so you can go see Mia and Dr. Finnegan.”

I whined again, but forced myself to sit up. Holding onto Stella, I glared blearily at Daddy. “More sleep,” I mumbled.

“Nope. Up. What do you want to wear today?”

I moaned again. It was early. “I don’t care,” I groaned, falling back into the pillows.

Daddy brought my camel colored cords over to the bed along with my favorite black sweater, and then I sat up. “No Daddy. We have yoga today. Those are too tight.”

“Then what do you want to wear Baby?”

“I like the sweater, but I want my good jeans. And those new shoes,” I pointed at the ballet flats I’d bought at Target a few weeks ago.

“Which jeans are your good jeans?” he asked me, rummaging through my drawers.

“The distressed jeans with the cuffs. Uh huh,” I nodded as he brought them over. Daddy helped me get dressed, and then watched me wash my face and brush my teeth.

“Can you do my hair?” I asked him as I stood in front of the mirror applying makeup.

“I can. What do you want me to do with it?”

“Braids. The fancy kind.”

Daddy braided my hair while I put on tinted moisturizer, blush, and lip gloss. When he finished, I quickly lined my eyes and curled my eyelashes so I could apply mascara.

“All done,” I said, spinning around.

“You look beautiful,” he told me. “Is Stella coming with you?”

“Uh huh,” I grabbed her from the bed and then followed Daddy downstairs. We ate breakfast quickly, and then he drove me to my program.

When I walked inside, I saw a red-eyed Mia standing next to a woman. I raised my hand a little and waved, but I didn’t want to go over since it looked like something was wrong.

Mia smiled at me and waved back, and then, tugging the other woman’s arm, she walked over to Daddy and me.

“El, this is my Mommy, Lisa,” she smiled at me.

I leaned against Daddy, clutching his hand in one mine and holding Stella tightly, and smiled. “Hi,” I said shyly.

“Hi,” she smiled at me warmly.

Daddy held out his hand, “I’m Mark.”

I blushed. I should have introduced them. Pressing my face against Daddy’s arm, I peeked at Mia. Lisa had turned to give her a hug and a kiss. I tried to ignore what she was saying.

“If I hear of any more trouble young lady, you aren’t going to be sitting comfortably for a while.”

My eyes widened, and I gripped Daddy’s hand even tighter.

“I have to go Baby,” Daddy smiled at me and gave me a kiss. “I’ll be back at 5:30.”

I hugged him; I didn’t want to let go, but I did. Mia grabbed my hand and began towing me toward the room we had used for group therapy.

“Bye,” she said, waving at Daddy and her Mommy.

The second day progressed pretty much like the first. We didn’t end up getting to do yoga because Lucy was sick. Instead, we were left to do art therapy again. With Karen.

I didn’t like her. She was a toucher. I didn’t like touchers.

The way I see it, the world is divided into two groups. There are people who hug casually, and people who don’t. I fall firmly into the second group.

Which is not to say that I don’t love to hug. I found hugging Daddy to be the most comforting thing we could do in public. I hugged close friends. I hugged my family.

I just don’t think seeing a coworker at the mall justifies a hug. It’s unnecessary. I hug people that I know and love.

Touchers are similar to huggers. They’re just into casually invading other people’s personal space. It’s rude and awkward. And as a non-hugger/non-toucher, in a profession surrounded by huggers and touchers, I often find myself breathing deeply through the process so as not to offend.

So Karen’s insistence on touching my knee, already a big freaking deal for me, made things awful. I hated being touched, but I also didn’t want to create a socially awkward moment where I told her to stop. Plus, she was kind of in charge.

So I didn’t say anything. I got that Mia thought it was all a test, but I just couldn’t take that chance.  
And the longer I didn’t say anything, the worse it got. The first couple of days, I tried to convince myself that I just needed to breathe through it, like I did when I had to hug someone in a social situation. But the longer I was in treatment, the more upset I got about it. Finally, it got to the point where I would have stomaches on the nights before I knew that Karen was going to be there.

I couldn’t even focus on the rest of treatment. I started spending my days curled up in a chair, moving only as directed, sucking my thumb and hugging Stella.

Finally, one day, three weeks into treatment, I snapped. Karen came over to tell me that Daddy was here. When she touched me, I was startled. I jumped and pushed her hard, backing myself into nearest corner. Karen had fallen backward onto the floor from where she had been kneeling, and she simply lay there for 30 seconds, staring up.

I covered my open mouth with my hand, letting out a low moan. I hadn’t meant to do that. I wasn’t angry; she startled me and I just panicked. Sinking to the ground, I rocked myself. They were never going to let me out. They were never going to let me go, and I’d be stuck here forever and ever and ever.

And Mark had been great so far, but how long was he going to wait for his crazy girlfriend who randomly attacked people and carried around a stuffed hippo. I’d crossed over from quirky to insane.

Mia must have gone to get Daddy because he walked into the room and began walking toward me. I wanted to jump up and throw myself at him, wrapping my arms and legs around his body and begging him to take me someplace far away.

I couldn’t move. Maybe if I didn’t move they wouldn’t see me. And they couldn’t hurt me if they couldn’t see me.

There were people crowding around Karen, and she seemed to be pulling herself together. She wasn’t really hurt I don’t think.

Daddy came over to me, stopping about six feet away. “I’m going to sit down with you,” he said calmly.

I nodded tearfully, not trusting myself to talk.

“I’d like to come closer. Is that okay?”

I nodded again, holding out my arm that wasn’t wrapped around Stella.

Daddy walked to me slowly, maintaining eye contact. When he got to my corner, he sat down in front of me. “Can you come sit on my lap?”

I shook my head at that. I couldn’t move. And I didn’t want my back to the rest of the room, which is what would happen since Daddy was facing the wall.

“Okay, then I’m going to help you,” Daddy slowly reached out for me, helping me into his lap and then turning himself around so his back was to the corner. He hugged me.

I tried to remain still, like a statue. I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself. But once I felt Daddy’s arms around me, I broke. Sobbing, I half-twisted on his lap, hugging him tightly and crying into his shoulder.

“Oh El,” Daddy rubbed my back gently, “It’s not that bad Baby. It’s okay Princess. Calm down. I’m here. Daddy’s got you.”

I shook my head at that, “Bad,” I said brokenly, “I’m bad. So bad.”

“No. You’re not bad. It’s okay. You just got a little scared; Karen knows you didn’t mean to hurt her, and she’s fine.”

“Bad bad bad,” I cried.

“No no no,” he said back, “Just having a bad day.”

“Bad life,” I choked out in reply.

“Shhh. It’s going to be fine,” Daddy was rocking a little, his hand rubbing soothing circles on my back as I cried out my misery.

“Don’t make me stay here Daddy. I’ll try harder to be good,” I whimpered, turning more so that I could wrap myself around Daddy more effectively.

“Baby, this isn’t a punishment,” Daddy sounded sad now too, and that made me cry even harder.

I felt someone kneeling next to us, and when I cracked open an eye, I saw Dr. Finnegan. She smiled at me, “Hi El. Looks like you had a problem.”

I hid my face again, still crying as I nodded.

“Why don’t we go into my office so we have a little privacy. Can you help me show Daddy where my office is?”

I shook my head at that, clinging to Daddy tightly. I didn’t want to go anywhere, and I definitely wasn’t going to let go of my Daddy right now.

“Come on Sweetheart,” Daddy struggled to his feet, with me attached to him like a monkey, “You’re okay. We’re going to go talk in Dr. Finnegan’s office. Does she have toys here too?”

I didn’t bother to answer. I knew what he was doing, and I wasn’t going to let him get me relaxed so I’d let go of him. If he wanted to leave me here, they’d have to pry me off.

When we got to Dr. Finnegan’s office, Daddy settled himself onto the couch with me still wrapped around him tightly. “El, do you think you can just sit on my lap while we’re in here? It can’t be comfortable for you like this.”

I shook my head at that, refusing to loosen my grip even the tiniest bit.

“Baby, I’m not going to go anywhere,” Daddy explained patiently.

I shook my head again, tightening my arms.

“Okay then,” Daddy shifted a little, making himself comfortable, and then Dr. Finnegan began talking.

“El, can you tell me what happened back there?” she didn’t sound mad.

I tried shaking my head, but my current location did not place me in the best position to refuse to talk. Daddy smacked my bottom, reprimanding me softly. “That wasn’t a request. You need to talk now.”

It didn’t really hurt; it was more of a gesture than anything else. But I started talking, softly, “I pushed Karen,” I said.

“Can you tell me why?” Dr. Finnegan was matching her voice to mine.

“I didn’t mean it,” my voice rose a little, panicky.

“Okay okay. Calm down,” Dr. Finnegan told me.

Daddy rocked a little, patting my back like I was really a baby.

“I just got scared,” I finally whispered.

“Scared of what Princess?” Daddy asked me.

“She keeps touching me. And I wasn’t ‘specting it today.”

“Touching you?” Dr. Finnegan sounded surprised.

I turned a little to look at her, loosening my grip slightly, “Yeah. You telled her to.”

“No El. I didn’t. Can you tell me what you mean?”

I nodded, shifting a little bit more. I held onto Daddy with one arm, but I put Stella down on the couch, and then I leaned a bit to touch Dr. Finnegan’s knee. “Like this. But all the time. Every time she talks to me, she touches me, and I don’t like it” I moved my hand back, picking Stella up.

Dr. Finnegan had been nodding as I explained, “I can imagine. I know that you don’t like touching.”

“Just Daddy,” I said quietly.

“Just Daddy,” she agreed, “Everyone else needs permission or to warn you. I know that I forget sometimes.”

I nodded, “Some people forget. And some people just don’t see that I don’t like it. But Karen knows,” I wiggled a little, unwrapping my legs and twisting myself so that I could see Dr. Finnegan without torquing my back. Slipping my thumb in my mouth, I explained more, “Just Daddy. I say no to everyone else, but I let Daddy. He’s safe.”

Dr. Finnegan was nodding sympathetically, “That’s an important rule to you,” she said, “That nobody touches El. And I know it’s really hard with your knees and your tummy.”

I nodded.

“I can understand how that would be scary. We’ve talked a lot about you getting to say who touches you and how. Do you remember what we talked about doing?”

“Mia said that’s what Karen was doing.”

“What?”

“Mia said it was a test. Karen wanted me to tell her to stop. But...I wasn’t sure.”

“El, I want you to listen to me very carefully. Nothing that happens in here is a trick. I’m not going to do that to you. It’s important that you trust me, and I wouldn’t ruin that by lying to you. Do you believe me?”

I nodded hesitantly, “I was scared, and I didn’t want to do something wrong.”

“Baby, what are you scared about?” Daddy broke in.

“I want to go home with you.”

“We will. We just need to talk about this first.”

“No Daddy,” I shook my head.

“I think that El means she was scared that we would keep her here,” Dr. Finnegan looked at me for confirmation, and I nodded once. “That’s not how it works sweetheart. Treatment is to help you. The only thing that would make it so you had to stay here and not go home with Daddy at night is if you were going to hurt yourself or somebody else. Otherwise, it’s a choice.”

I nodded at that, and then looked at Daddy, “You don’t leave me here?” I checked with him.

“No,” he said, shaking his head, “You come home and sleep with me. Every night. Just like we talked about. As long as I can keep you safe at home, that’s where you’ll stay. I promise.”

I relaxed a little bit at that. Now that I wasn’t hysterical, it was easier. Daddy didn’t promise unless he knew. Although that could be difficult to remember when I was upset.

“Go home now?” I asked hopefully.

“I think you should apologize to Karen first,” Daddy said.

My chin got wobbly, but then blessed wonderful Dr. Finnegan interrupted, “I think that El should go home Mark. I need to talk with Karen; we can talk tomorrow morning about what we want to do.”

Daddy nodded, and we stood up. Dr. Finnegan looked at me closely for a minute, and then started talking, “El, I think that Karen was trying to help you. But,” she paused, “It wasn’t okay. We need to work on you saying what you need, but this is a new place, and it’s a little scary for you right now. You weren’t sure about the rules. From now on, you come and tell me if something’s bothering you. Understand?”

I nodded, clutching Daddy’s hand. Then, making a decision, I thrust Stella at Daddy and let go of him. I leaned forward slightly, and hugged Dr. Finnegan. Just for a second, but I hugged her. “Thank you,” I whispered, and then let go. I didn’t hug everybody. I didn’t even hug most people. But Dr. Finnegan was different. She really wanted to help me, and I mostly didn’t appreciate it because it was hard work.

Dr. Finnegan smiled at me as I grabbed Daddy’s hand and then Stella, “You’re welcome. Now,” she made her face serious, “It’s time for you to go home. I want you to relax and enjoy the rest of your night.”

I nodded, and Daddy started walking out. “Daddy?” I stopped him. When he turned to me, I held my arms out.

“You want to be carried Baby?” he asked.

It wasn’t something we did outside our house, but I didn’t want to have to look at anybody. When I nodded, Daddy picked me up and we left. I buried my face in his shoulder, too embarrassed to see who else was still there.

As we walked out to the car, Daddy talked softly. “Do you want to just go home Baby?”

I nodded, sniffling pathetically.

“I think,” he said, settling me into my seat in the car and buckling me, “That we should heat up the soup from last weekend. Does that sound good Princess?”

“Okay,” I said quietly.

“Now, should we bake cookies or should we watch a movie?”

I looked at him. Movies and cookies were typically weekend activities. Daddy thinks I eat too much sugar, and my television time is monitored more during the week. “What happened to only an hour of TV Daddy?”

He smiled at me, “I think maybe we could watch one movie.”

“Shirley Temple?” I asked hopefully.

“Okay. I’m surprised; I thought you would want cookies.”

“We have cookie dough in the freezer,” I suggested, “And rolls. So we can bake half a dozen cookies while the rolls are cooking. That way, we can have cookies while we watch Shirley Temple.”

We ended up having a quiet night, eating chocolate chip cookies and watching Bright Eyes. Once the movie was over, I took my bath, and then Daddy tucked me into bed.

I didn’t want to read; I just wanted to lay there with Daddy and talk.

“I have to go back tomorrow?” I asked him.

“You do,” he replied.

“I don’t like it there Daddy. I want to just go to therapy with Dr. Finnegan like before.”

“Can you tell me what you don’t like?” he asked me.

I shrugged, “I don’t know.”

“Are you sure you don’t know?”

“I don’t like Karen. It’s not fair; she’s not nice Daddy.”

“What does she do that’s nice?”

I sat up, looking at him, “She’s sneaky.”

“Because she was touching you so that you’d respond? I know you don’t like that she was doing that El, but is it really mean?”

“Yes.”

“Come here Baby,” Daddy tugged on me until I lay back down against him. “You don’t have to like Karen. You’re working with her. Once you feel better, you never have to see her again if you don’t want to.”

“I want to not see her ever again now,” I told him mulishly.

“I understand that, but it’s not going to happen. You just need to go to treatment and do the work so that you can be done dealing with her.”

I nodded, playing with Stella’s ears. After a moment, I asked the question that scared me, “What if I don’t get better?” We had talked about it before; Daddy thought that there would be a time when I was okay, but I didn’t.

“You will,” he reassured me. He was stroking my arm, and I wanted to just relax into the sensation. “And when you do,” he continued, “We’re going to do something great.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But I do know you’re working really hard, and when you feel better, we are going to celebrate. Maybe we could go someplace. We could go to Chicago. Or to New York, you’ve never been there.”

“Do I have to get better better? Or just be done with day treatment? Because I think I’m going to have to see Dr. Finnegan for a long time. Or at least, she thinks I will.”

“Just day treatment. When you’re back down to just regular therapy, we’re going to go celebrate. We’ll take a vacation, just the two of us, to someplace where we don’t know anybody. And we’ll have a good time and not talk about therapy.”

I yawned sleepily, “Are you going to just drop me off tomorrow? Or are you staying to talk with Dr. Finnegan?”

“I’m going to stay with you for a bit.”

I yawned again, bringing a hand up to rub at my eyes.

“I think it’s time to turn off the light,” Daddy suggested.

“Five more minutes,” I said, even as I closed my eyes and started sucking my thumb.

Daddy didn’t bother to say anything, he just turned off the light, and then we slept.


	5. Recovery

The next morning, when I woke up, I cried and begged him to let me stay home. I promised to clean the entire condo and make dinner. I swore I would bake him cookies while he was at work. I would do anything, so long as he didn’t make me go.

I didn’t want to go back, but he made me. He physically forced me out of bed. He put my pants and shoes on me. When I refused to brush my teeth, he did that too.

As I sat at the kitchen counter sobbing, he made oatmeal and brought it over. I pushed the bowl away and laid my head down on the counter top.

“You need to sit up and eat,” he told me.

“No,” I sobbed out, “You’re the meanest Daddy ever. If you were a good Daddy, you’d let me stay home.”

He reached over, forcing me to sit up straight so that he could look into my eyes, “I’m sorry that you’re upset. I am El. I don’t like having to do this; I know that you hate it. But you do have to go back today. It’s not going to be any easier tomorrow or the day after. So you need to sit up like a big girl and eat your breakfast. And you can scream and cry and tell me that I’m the worst Daddy on Earth, but you’re still going back today.”

I stopped crying for a minute, shocked. When he let me go though, I simply laid my head back down, my tears starting up again.

“Eleanor, I’m sorry that you’re unhappy, but we don’t have time for this. You have to eat breakfast, and it has to be now. So I’m going to count to three, and if I don’t see that spoon in your mouth, you’re getting a spanking. One.”

I shook my head, still sobbing.

“Two,” he wasn’t backing down. 

I drummed my toes against the cabinet in front of me as I cried with frustration and anger.

“Three,” he didn’t bother to say anything else, just standing up and pulling me off the stool. He bent me over the counter top and began smacking my bottom through my jeans. I really began wailing then, struggling to get away from him.

Once my bottom was stinging, but before it was actively hurting, he helped me stand up. “Are you ready to eat now?” he asked.

“NO NO NO NO NO!” I shrieked, furious and embarrassed and completely out of sorts. “I don’t want to eat, and I don’t want to go, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” I sat down abruptly on the floor, hugging my knees with my arms and resting my head, “You’re a bad Daddy, and I wish you’d go away,” I concluded.

“Wrong answer,” Daddy told me, jerking me up off the floor by the arm. This time when he bent me over the counter, he pulled my jeans and panties down first.

“I’ve tried to be patient this morning Baby Girl, but you are just not working with me. You are going to eat your breakfast, you are going to go to treatment, and you are going to start treating me and our relationship with more respect or we’re going to be doing this a lot more often,” he lectured, his hand landing with quick sharp swats on my naked rear.

I squealed and tried to move away, but he had me pinned pretty well. Once he had finished the lecture, he helped me stand up again. 

He asked me again, “Are you ready to eat now?”

I was still crying hard, and my hands were rubbing furiously, but I nodded yes even as I sobbed.

“Alright,” he bent down to pull up my jeans and panties, and then he led me over to the stool where I normally sat. “I want you to eat your oatmeal then please.”

I sat down, crying harder as I made contact with the hard wooden stool. Still sobbing, I lifted the spoon up to my lips and began eating my breakfast.

I made it through two spoonfuls before I gagged and had to race to the sink so I could throw up. Daddy rubbed my back and got me a glass of water, but then he made me sit back down and eat.

“I’m sick,” I cried.

“No,” he said, his voice very matter of fact, “You made yourself throw up because you wouldn’t stop crying. Now finish your breakfast so we can brush your teeth again before we go.”

As soon as I had swallowed the last bite of oatmeal, Daddy handed me my pill and made me take it with a glass of orange juice. While I did that, he quickly washed the breakfast dishes. Then, true to his word, I was led back upstairs so that he could brush my teeth again. By this point, I was no longer crying, although I was still occasionally shuddering. 

“Do you want to wash your face again before we go Baby?” he asked me quietly, “Your eyes are probably a little gritty and sore.”

I nodded, and I sat still as he quickly washed my face with a cool washcloth.

“Let’s get Stella for you, and then it’s time to go.”

I was quiet in the car on the way there, holding Stella tightly and staring out the window. When Daddy parked the car, I finally spoke again, “Please Daddy,” I whispered, “Please don’t.”

He shut off the car and turned so that he could look at me, “You have to go. It’s almost 9:00 now, and then I’ll come and get you at 5:30 like normal. Come on, let’s go in and talk with Dr. Finnegan before I have to go to work.”

I didn’t get out of the car with Daddy, and he came around to my side and opened up my door for me. “It’s okay Baby. It’s less than 9 hours, and Dr. Finnegan said she’d talk with Karen.”

I sniffled a little, but I took his hand, and we walked into the building. The lobby was full of people coming and going, and I shrunk against Daddy’s side, trying to make myself invisible. I was embarrassed about yesterday, and I didn’t want to have anyone see me.

Dr. Finnegan noticed me almost immediately, and she shepherded Daddy and I back to her office. 

“I want you to go and sit at that table for a bit,” she directed, pointing at the table we used for coloring. 

“Where’s Daddy going to be?” I asked quietly.

“We’re going to talk in the hallway.”

I shook my head at that, “I don’t want to,” I told her, clutching his hand tightly.

“El, I need to talk with Dr. Finnegan privately. I’ll come in and see you before I go.”

I shook my head again, and Daddy raised his eyebrow at me.

“I think we already had a discussion this morning about doing what you’re told. Do we need to borrow Dr. Finnegan’s office so we can talk about it again?”

I shook my head, but I didn’t let go of Daddy’s hand. Sighing, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys, “Here, hold onto these for me. I’ll have to come and see you before I go to work then.”

I unhappily took the keys and went to the table, watching Daddy until he shut the door. Sitting at the table, I traced patterns with my finger and waited for him to come back in.

Mark’s POV

I felt like an ass. Like an unsympathetic, uncompromising ass. I’d spent the entire morning forcing her to get ready to go to a place she hated, and when she became (understandably) upset, I’d spanked her not once, but twice. And I’d now just threatened to spank her a third time because she was worried I was going to leave. She’d thrown up because she was upset, and I hadn’t even offered her any comfort.

I know that El worries I’m going to leave. I get that she’s really insecure. And I’m an asshole. And now I’m standing in front of her therapist, rubbing at my face and trying to figure out how I’m going to make it through the next however long it takes to get El to a point that she doesn’t need day treatment.

“Rough morning?” she asked me sympathetically.

I nodded wearily, “She cried. She begged. Apparently I’m the world’s meanest Daddy. I’ve already had to spank her twice today,” I smiled at Dr. Finnegan.

“Well, maybe she’ll be happier once she finds out Karen no longer works here.”

“What happened? I wasn’t happy that she was touching El, but I understand her reasoning.”

“So do I. And if she’d been willing to agree to not push the touching issue with El for a few weeks, she’d still be here. Unfortunately, when I tried to talk with her, she was wholly unreasonable. And Mark, it’s not just about El. This isn’t the first time Karen’s clashed with senior staff.”

“I wanted El to apologize to her,” I told Dr. Finnegan.

“Well, Karen wanted something a little bit different. I don’t know that she entirely understands the dynamic at play here; she became rather insistent that El be disciplined. We disagreed about it. We’re here to help people; if I began disciplining every unruly client, nobody would trust us.

“Oh,” now that I knew that, I was less concerned that El apologize. I’d wanted El to say she was sorry so that she could see that nobody was upset and that things happened. That probably wouldn’t have been accomplished by Karen getting angry.

“Mark, we’re all concerned about El being okay. I’m hoping that you trust us enough to leave her here again today.”

I looked at Dr. Finnegan, “Of course I do. El was upset last night; Karen’s judgement wasn’t great. But El’s fine. And I don’t see us finding another facility that will work as well as this one can.”

“Alright. Then I need you to go in there and tell her good bye so we can start to work today.”

“I really don’t want to do that,” I said wryly, even as I opened up the door.

El jumped up from her spot at the table and was at my side almost instantly. She didn’t say anything, just watched me closely and gripped my hand.

“Okay Baby. Daddy’s got to go to work now,” I kept my voice light, “Can I have my keys please?”

She shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. Crap. I’m a horrible Daddy. I smiled at her and forced myself to keep going, “Yes please. I need to go to work. You’re going to stay with Dr. Finnegan. I’ll be back by 5:30.”

El wrapped her arms around me, burying her face against my chest, “Don’t leave me,” she whimpered pitifully.

At that moment, I wanted to pick her up and walk out. I could take her to the airport, and we could fly someplace where nothing would be able to upset her. I swallowed hard and hugged her. “Baby, I have to go. I promise I’ll be back at 5:30.”

“Don’t want to see Karen,” she cried.

Dr. Finnegan stepped in, “You won’t have to El. Karen isn’t going to be working with us anymore.”

El pulled away from me then, looking at both of us, “Why? What happened?”

“You don’t need to worry about that. Now, I need you to give Daddy his keys; we’re already late for group therapy.”

She shook her head, burying her face in my chest, “No. I don’t want to. I didn’t mean it Daddy. You’re not a mean Daddy. I’m sorry. Don’t leave me. Please?”

“El,” I tried to keep my voice even, “I’m not angry about what you said Baby. This isn’t a punishment; I just need to go to work now. I’m going to come back and get you at the end of the day. You need to be a big girl for me. Don’t you want to go see Mia?”

“No,” her voice was muffled.

“Mark,” Dr. Finnegan touched my arm lightly, “It’s not going to get any easier. You just need to go to work.”

“No No No No,” Elle cried, shaking her head wildly, “Don’t leave me. I didn’t mean it. Sorry Daddy.” 

“Yes El. I know you’re upset, but Daddy’s going to go to work. Then he’ll come back. Now give him his keys,” Dr. Finnegan kept her voice calm as she spoke to El, but she sounded firm.

“Nooooooo,” she cried.

“El, if you need help while Daddy’s leaving that’s fine. If you don’t let go of him and let him leave, I’m going to assume that you need me to help you.”

El couldn’t do it right now. I knew that. So I gently pried her arms off of me and then reached into her pocket for the keys. She was scrambling, trying to launch herself back at me, but Dr. Finnegan was holding her tightly. “I’ll be back to get you tonight Baby. Be good Princess,” I kissed her quickly, and then I walked out. 

When I got to the car, I drove around the block and then parked. It took me a good ten minutes of second-guessing before I could turn my car back on and head to work.

El’s POV

I cried and tried to get away from Dr. Finnegan, but she wouldn’t let me go, “You let me go,” I said angrily, “I want my Daddy. I don’t want you.”

“I understand that,” her voice was quiet in my ear, “And as soon as you stop struggling and show me that you’ll be safe and stay here, I will let you go. It’s up to you.”

I fought for a few more minutes, but then I sagged against her. It was no good; he was gone already.

“Are you ready to go to group therapy?” she asked me gently, releasing me.

“No,” I told her, angry. I had moved away from her once she let me go, and I was now clutching Stella and sitting in the corner. “I want my Daddy. I want to go home.”

“I understand that,” Dr. Finnegan settled herself onto the floor, facing me, “But today you’re here with us. So, are you going to use this time to get better or would you rather waste it? Because you’re here either way kiddo.”

I sniffled at that, “You’re mean.”

“Eleanor, it’s time to go to therapy. If you don’t want to go to group, you’re welcome to go sit in the quiet room by yourself. It’s your choice.”

“I’m not going ANYWHERE until my Daddy gets back,” I told her.

“Yes you are. Your choices are group therapy or the quiet room. Which would you prefer?”

“Neither,” I spat out.

“I will call an orderly to help you move if I need to Eleanor. You need to make a decision.”

When I refused to move, she called in the orderly. 

I jumped up and backed into the corner, “I wanna go to group therapy,” I said, panicking. I’d never been in the quiet room, and I didn’t want to start today. I was pretty sure that Daddy was not going to consider that me being good.

“Alright then. We’re going to go to group therapy,” Dr. Finnegan offered me her hand, but I wouldn’t take it. Instead, I walked to group hugging Stella.

“Who has something they’d like to share today?” Dr. Finnegan asked. 

Mia had saved me one of the comfortable chairs, and I had my knees up to my chest as I looked at the floor.

Stupid Tom started, “I want to know why it’s okay for some people here to hit.”

I tensed, trying to force myself to not rock. 

Mia came to my defense, “Shut up Tom. She’s already upset; you don’t have to be an ass about it.”

“Mia, watch your language. Tom, I know that we’ve discussed not picking on other people before. Do I need to call your Daddy?” Dr. Finnegan asked.

“I’m not picking on anybody,” Tom objected, “She attacked Karen yesterday, and today Karen isn’t working here but she’s back, acting like she has a right to be here.”

“Tom, this is your last chance. If you aren’t going to be able to be appropriate today, then you can go and wait in the quiet room until your Daddy comes to get you.”

Tom petulantly crossed his arms over his chest and slumped backward in the chair, glaring at me. I looked down, my face bright red and my eyes full of tears.

I didn’t pay attention to the rest of group; I was too focused on not crying. Once we were done, Dr. Finnegan calmly guided me back to her office. After getting me settled on the couch, she handed me Kleenex and a juice box. 

“That wasn’t very fun, was it?” she said sympathetically.

I shook my head no, pulling my feet up so that I could curl into a ball.

“We’re going to talk about what happened yesterday.”

I shook my head again. I didn’t want to talk about it.

“Yes. You have clients who have been sexually abused, am I right?”

I nodded hesitantly.

“Then you know, sometimes, stuff just triggers them. It’s not their fault. It’s unfortunate. But it happens. Yesterday, when Karen touched you and you weren’t expecting it, it triggered you. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I pushed her,” I whispered, my voice shaky.

“You did. She scared you.”

“I’m not supposed to hurt anybody.” It was a rule. It was the big rule.

“You aren’t. But you didn’t do it on purpose.”

I shook my head no, “I didn’t mean it.”

“We know that El. Would you like to hear what happened when you left?”

I nodded.

“Karen and I talked about you and about some other problems we’ve had that had nothing to do with you. After we talked, I decided that Karen wasn’t a good fit for this facility. That’s why she’s not here. Do you understand?”

“Uh huh.”

“Okay. Then, I think we should talk about what we were going to do here. I know you and your Daddy talked; coming here isn’t negotiable. What do you want to see happen?” Holding up her hand, she continued, “And don’t say you want to be discharged. I know that already. I want to develop a treatment plan with you.”

“I already have a plan,” I pointed out.

“We do have a plan. But I think that you and I need to talk without Daddy about what you’re hoping to accomplish.”

I bit my lip, thinking. “I don’t want to hurt anybody anymore. I want to not have bad dreams about what happened. And I want to be able to talk about what happened with Daniel. Not with my parents,” I hurriedly continued, “I just want to know that when I want to talk about it that I can.”

“Alright. Those are some good goals.”

Dr. Finnegan and I spent the session talking about how we could do the things I wanted, and I left feeling relatively good about treatment. Since Karen wasn’t there, we had an orderly watching us during art therapy. Dr. Finnegan got us set up with a collage project, and then she left.

“Did you get in trouble last night?” Mia asked me.

“No,” I shook my head, my eyes trained on my project. “Daddy and Dr. Finnegan said it was an accident,” I looked up at Mia, “I didn’t mean to do it. Karen surprised me.”

“Karen’s a bitch,” Mia told me.

My eyes widened, and I quickly looked around the room to make sure nobody had heard, “Mia,” I whispered, “Dr. Finnegan just told you to watch your mouth.”

“Bitch bitch bitch. I know them when I see them, and Karen was totally a bitch,” Mia smiled at me as she said it.

“You’re gonna get in trouble,” I said primly.

“I’m already in trouble; Dr. Finnegan is going to tell Mommy that I swore during group, and I’m going to get my mouth washed out with soap.”

“Your mommy does that?”

“Your Daddy doesn’t?”

“Nuh uh,” I told her, shaking my head no. “I’m ‘llowed to swear if I’m not doing it at somebody and it doesn’t get excessive. Daddy doesn’t love it, but it’s not a rule.”

“Lucky. Mommy says I’ve got the mouth of a sailor.”

“I swear some of the time, but before Daddy was Daddy he didn’t like me swearing. So I tried not to in front of him anyway. Then, when he got to be Daddy, I guess I was just used to not doing it,” looking at her conspiratorially, I whispered, “But I still swear a lot at work.”

We both giggled at that, and then we focused on our projects.

Mia stayed with me all day, trying to keep my mind off what had happened the day before. I managed to make it through, and our days took on a pattern.

Daddy got me up and ready, and then I went to treatment. Mia and I spent our days together there, and then Daddy got me and we went home. 

I hated it. Dr. Finnegan said it was because we were doing hard work. But we did it.

Talking about Daniel was really really hard. We hadn’t really since the last time I’d had regular therapy before I’d hurt myself and landed in day treatment. 

“I think you might need to hate him,” she suggested.

I shook my head, “I don’t want to.”

“I know. But I think that you do already. Trying to not hate him isn’t working for you. Come on, we’re going to try an exercise. I’m going to be Daniel, and I want you to tell me what happened.”

“I don’t like that idea,” I told her.

“Understood. Now go ahead.”

I scowled, but I started, “You hurt me,” I stopped, closing my eyes. I forced myself to continue, but I kept my eyes closed, “You hurt me. You touched me. You touched me, and you shouldn’t have. And when you were done, you threatened me. You said if I told that nobody would believe me, or they would blame me. You said you’d hurt me. You said if I didn’t let you touch me you’d do it to my brother and sister. You said that my parents knew and they thought it was okay because I was bad and dirty and horrible and I deserved what you were doing.”

I stopped, breathing heavily, as though I had run a race. Dr. Finnegan waited a moment, to see if I was finished.

“Okay. That was a good start. Now, I want you to tell Daniel how his actions affected you.”

I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my head on top of them so I didn’t have to see her, “I’m afraid all the time, and that’s your fault. And I don’t like people to touch me, and that’s your fault too. I jump and have nightmares and want to kill myself because you did something that you had no right to do to me or anybody else. I feel guilty about what you did to me. I feel guilty and dirty, and I shouldn’t have to. You did something wrong; I didn’t hurt anybody, but you hurt me. I worry that you hurt other people and I could have stopped you. I should have stopped you.”

I was talking quickly now, my words tumbling over each other as tears poured down my face, “You ruined my life. You destroyed my relationship with my parents. You made it so I couldn’t talk to anybody. You made me feel like it was my job to keep this secret and it isn’t. It wasn’t my job; I was a kid. It was your job to take care of me. I don’t trust people because of what you did to me. I don’t tell people things or expect anyone to take care of me or love me because you said that I was unlovable. You said that I deserved it. But I didn’t. I didn’t deserve what happened to me. I hate me. You made me hate me, and I hate you. I wish you were dead.” I stopped, shocked.

Shaking, I lifted my head up so that I could look at Dr. Finnegan. She smiled at me, “Good girl.”

I roughly wiped my face with my hands, “I didn’t mean that. I don’t know why I said it.”

“I think that you did mean it,” she contradicted me. “I think that you meant it, and that’s okay El.”

“No,” I shook my head, “I didn’t. I don’t hate him. I don’t want to hate him.”

“It’s okay to hate him. What he did to you was awful. It’s okay to hate him for that.”

“No. I don’t want to. Somebody hurt him first. And then he hurt me. It wasn’t his fault.”

“Did you ever hurt another kid?”

“No, but that doesn’t matter. He got hurt too.”

“Probably,” she nodded. “But being a victim doesn’t give you the right to victimize others. Having someone hurt you doesn’t mean you exist in some alternate universe where you are allowed to say or do whatever you want.”

"No," I shook my head at her, clenching my fists. "I'm not going to hate him. He didn't mean it. Something bad happened to him."

"Alright," she said, nodding agreeably, "Then I guess we should just let you do whatever you'd like then? Because something bad happened to you. Would you like that El? If you didn't have any rules and you could be naughty and awful all the time because Daddy felt badly about it?"

"No, that's different."

"Why?"

"Because it is."

"That doesn't work for me. You need to explain why this is different."

"My parents loved me. My house was safe. I got to grow up in a nice safe place, and he didn't. What happened to me was awful, but it was just one tiny part of my childhood. It was all of his."

"That doesn't matter. It was a bad thing that happened to you. It's okay to be sad or angry about it. It's okay to feel that way El."

"I don't want to."

"Why?"

"Because I don't. I just want to not hate him or me. I want it to not have happened."

"Then tell Daniel that. Go ahead. Tell him how you wish things had been."

"This is stupid. He's not here."

"Go on El. This is what we’re doing today. Tell Daniel what you wish had happened."

"I wish that he hadn't touched me."

"Tell Daniel."

"I wish you hadn't hurt me. I wish that things were different. I wish that my parents had known. But it doesn't matter how much I want things to be different because they aren't. This still happened. This is still how things are, and hating you and wishing doesn't change anything."

I was angry. I hated doing this stupid activity, and I wanted to go home. 

"Good job El. You're doing great today. You need to take a break?"

I curled up into a ball, refusing to answer.

"El, I need you to talk. I don't know what you need unless you tell me."

"Go away. I want my Daddy."

"He's going to come and get you at 5:30. Just like always."

"I don't want to wait. I want him now."

"I'm sorry El. He's not coming right now. He'll come at 5:30."

"You let me call him now," I sat up, yelling at her. "You let me call him so that I can go home. I hate it here. I want to go home." I picked up the box of tissues and hurled it at her head.

She batted it away. “You need to calm down. If you can’t calm down, I’m going to send you to the quiet room until you’re feeling better.”

I stood up abruptly, still holding Stella, and walked out. 

Dr. Finnegan followed me, “We’re not done yet El.”

I ignored her, walking down the hallway to the quiet room and opening the door. I sat down quietly on the floor in the corner, and then I curled up in a ball on my side. 

“You can tell Daddy where I am when he gets here,” I told her. Then I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep.

Mark’s POV

When I got there to pick up El, she wasn’t in the room with Mia, where I normally found her at 5:30. I didn’t see Dr. Finnegan, so I walked over to the table where Mia was sitting by herself and bent down to ask her, “Hey, do you know where El is?” I smiled at her.

Mia looked at me warily, “She didn’t come back from therapy,” she said slowly.

“Okay. Do you know where she went instead?”

“Quiet room,” Mia mumbled, looking at the drawing that she was working on.

Dr. Finnegan showed up then, and she motioned me into the hallway.

“El and I had a rough session today.”

“What happened? Is she okay?”

“We talked about Daniel. She elected to spend the rest of the day in the Quiet Room rather than dealing with me. Why don’t you come into the office, and we can talk before you go to grab her.”

I followed Dr. Finnegan to her office, and we sat down. I wanted to just grab El and go, but I figured I probably needed to know what had happened first.

“El and I did an exercise today where I was Daniel. She said that she hated Daniel, and she’s very uncomfortable with that feeling.”

“Did she say that she’s uncomfortable?”

“No. She refuses to accept that she hates him. She is insisting that she doesn’t even though she already said that she did. When I tried to convince her that it was okay, she threw a box of tissues at me; then she decided she wasn’t going to do anything else today.”

“Great,” I slumped against the back of the couch. “Any suggestions?” I asked.

“Take her home. Let her have an easy night. But make sure she comes back tomorrow. If she wants to talk about it she can, but don’t make her.”

“Okay then. I guess I should go get her.”

When I got to the Quiet Room, El was curled up in a ball on the floor, staring off into space. “Hey Princess. I heard you had a rough day,” I said sympathetically, sliding down the wall until I was sitting next to her.

She scrambled up onto my lap, burying her face against me. “Dr. Finnegan is mean Daddy.”

“She is? You want to go home Baby?”

“Uh huh.”

She clung to me, and I was forced to carry her out to the car again. She was quiet for most of the evening, moving as directed and staying close.

Finally, once she was settled into the bathtub, she wanted to talk about it.

“Daddy?” she started tentatively, looking at the toy in her hands.

“Yes?” I prompted.

“If I did something bad, would you still love me?” her words came out haltingly.

“Of course I would,”I assured her, “We’ve talked about this Baby. There’s nothing that you can do that’s bad enough to make me stop loving you.”

“What if it was really really bad though Daddy?”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s scaring you Princess, and we’ll talk about it.”

“Hating people is bad.”

I waited, patient.

“It is Daddy. Right? Dr. Finnegan says it’s okay, but it’s bad.”

“No. It’s okay to hate people.”

“Nuh uh.”

“It’s okay.”

She shook her head no, and I could see tears dripping off her eyelashes and into the tub.

“It’s okay for you to hate him El. I hate him,” I admitted.

She looked up at that, “You hate Daniel?”

“I do. I hate him for what he did to you.”

“It wasn’t his fault Daddy. Kids do that because something bad happened to them,” her face was worried.

“I don’t care. I hate him. Every time you flinch when I go to touch you or you wake up from nightmares crying and shaking, I hate him.”

She looked down at that, shaking her head, “It’s bad.”

“Nope. It’s just how it is. I hate him. That’s the way it works. Maybe eventually I won’t anymore, but I do now.” I kept my voice level.

“Sometimes,” she wasn’t looking at me, and her voice was low, “Sometimes I wish he was dead. Mostly I just wish I was dead, but sometimes him too.”

She went quiet after that, not really talking except to respond to questions. Once we finished with her bath, I helped her into pajamas and we cuddled together in bed.

“It’s okay if I hate him?” she asked me. She was playing with Stella and trying to sound nonchalant.

“It is,” I told her, carding my fingers through her hair.

“It’s not bad?”

“No Baby. It’s not bad. You can’t help the way you feel,” I reassured her.

“I hate him,” she whispered. She lay there silent for a minute, and then lifted her head from my chest to look at me, a worried expression on her face, “You still love me?”

I nodded at her and smiled a little, “Always.”

She nodded at that, and then laid her head back on my chest. “Good night Daddy,” she told me.

“Night Princess. Sweet dreams.” I turned off the light and lay quietly, listening to her fall asleep.

We made it about 3 hours before the nightmare. She was moaning and crying, and I shook her. She shrieked when I touched her, and then cried hysterically.

Curling up away from me, she rocked herself, “Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry,” she repeated.

“El. El Baby. Wake up. It’s okay,” I tried to reassure her, but she jerked away. 

“Bad,” she whimpered miserably.

I reached for the light; sometimes being able to see helped.

“Come on Baby. Sit up,” I tried to help her up, but she flailed a little.

“No no no,” she cried.

“El. El,” I tried to grab her hands, “El, stop it. You’re fine. It was just a bad dream Honey. Wake up. It’s okay. Daddy’s here.” Finally, I managed to grip her tightly and hold her still. “Wake up Baby. You’re fine.”

I knew when she woke up because she stiffened suddenly.

“Shhhhh,” I murmured, “It’s okay. You had a bad dream. I’m going to let you go now Baby. You’re fine,” I reassured her.

“No,” she whispered.

“Yeah Princess,” I brushed hair away from her face and tried to smile at her, “It’s okay. It was just a bad dream.”

El covered her face with both of her hands, and she cried. When I tried to pull her into a hug, she jerked away.

“Baby, come here.”

She shook her head, stiffening and not letting me hug her.

I looked at her for a moment, not sure what to do. Making a decision, I got out of bed. Then I walked around to her side and grabbed one of her hands.

“Come on,” I urged her, pulling at her arm.

She shook her head no.

“Yeah. Stella wants to have hot chocolate with me.”

She scowled at me, “No she doesn’t.”

I squatted next to the bed so that we were face to face, “She does,” I disagreed, “She knows I hid whipped cream from you.”

I could tell that she was wavering, so I continued, “She also knows about ginger snaps.”

She shook her head, “We don’t have any ginger snaps,” she said.

“She hid them from you. You know Stella loves ginger snaps.”

She bit her lip, considering my offer, and I figured it was better to just act like she had acquiesced.

“Come here,” I said, forcing her to sit up so that I could carry her on my hip. “Stella’s hungry.” Now that I had her up, she wasn’t fighting me. 

She was quiet on the way to the kitchen, and she stayed on the stool where I placed her. I moved around the kitchen, pouring milk into a saucepan and grabbing a box of ginger snaps that I’d hidden on a high shelf she couldn’t reach.

“See, I told you we had cookies.” I shook a few cookies out of the box, handing them to El. “Go on Baby. Eat your cookies.”

El’s POV

I sat watching Daddy while I nibbled on one of the cookies. He was stirring chocolate into the milk, and then he poured it into a big mug, adding generous amounts of whipped cream. Walking back around the counter toward me, he placed the mug on the counter and picked me up.

Juggling the mug, me, and the box of cookies, we went into the living room, and he settled us into the overstuffed chair. Holding the mug to my mouth, he gave me a drink.

“I can do it,” I mumbled, trying to grasp the cup.

“I know,” he smiled at me, but didn’t let go. 

I allowed myself to relax against him, nibbling on cookies and sipping the hot chocolate. Once it had cooled, he placed it on the side table, and then he began running his fingers through my hair.

“I don’t hate him Daddy,” I whispered.

He whispered too, “Is that what your nightmare was about Baby?”

“It’s bad Daddy. I’m not bad anymore. ‘Member? It’s bad to hate, and you said I’m good now.”

“Okay Baby,” he sounded like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t.

“What’s okay?”

“You don’t have to hate him if you don’t. But it’s okay if you do.”

“I don’t.”

“Alright Princess. Do you want another cookie?”

“I already had four Daddy.”

“So no more?”

Daddy never let me have more than a few cookies. He said the sugar would make my tummy hurt. “No thank you,” I told him.

“Ready to go back up and try to sleep then?” he smiled at me.

I nodded, and he gestured for me to stand up. Before he could pick me up again, I had grabbed the mug and the cookies, and I was walking toward the kitchen.

He followed me, “What are you doing Princess?”

“I just want to wash up and put the cookies away,” I said, keeping my back to him.

“Well, I want you to go to bed.”

I wanted to argue. I didn’t want to know the dishes were downstairs. But wiping my hands on the towel, I walked over to Daddy, “‘K.”

He looked surprised, but I grabbed his hand and we walked upstairs. He tucked me back in, and then he turned out the light.

“No begging to read Baby?” he teased gently.

“No Daddy. It’s time to sleep,” I curled against him, and I focused on falling asleep.

The next morning, when he woke me up, I wanted to complain. I hate the morning. But instead, I got out of bed. 

I wanted to refuse to eat when Daddy put another bowl of oatmeal in front of me, but I smiled and ate it instead. I took my pills without complaint, and then we went to treatment.

When Daddy dropped me off, he came inside to talk with Dr. Finnegan. I stayed with Mia in the lobby, and I let him leave when he was finished. No tears, no begging. 

“Be a good girl Princess. I’ll be back to get you at 5:30.” 

I smiled and gave him a hug and a kiss, and then I went to group. I was appropriate. I was quiet and polite and I participated.

And that’s pretty much how it went for several days. Dr. Finnegan couldn’t accept that I was really just trying my hardest. I tried to tell her that I wanted to do the work, but she kept insisting that I needed to discuss my feelings. I just smiled and did what I was told.

By the time we got to Friday, I felt like I was going to jump out of my skin. When we got home, Daddy sent me to wash my hands in the bathroom with a light smack to my bottom. He was being neurotic about hand washing just because Mia had bronchitis.

I didn’t want to, and I decided to go play with my toys in the living room instead. Which is where Daddy found me ten minutes later when he finally decided to look for me.

He dropped beside me on the floor, smiling, “Get distracted?” he asked.

“No,” I said shortly, focused on the castle I was building, “I want to play.”

“Well,” he said, “I want you to go wash your hands like I asked.”

“Later,” I told him.

“No, I want you to go do it now please,” Daddy kept his voice light.

“No,” I told him, focused on my blocks.

“Eleanor,” Daddy no longer sounded light and playful, “I want you to get up and wash your hands please. Now, before you earn yourself a spanking.”

“I said I’ll do it later,” I told him, my voice taking on an edge.

Daddy didn’t bother to ask again, simply gripping me by the upper arm and hauling me to my feet. After I was standing, he firmly applied his hand to my bottom half a dozen times, “Now go wash your hands,” he said, sounding very serious. 

“Owww,” I said, my hands covering my backside, “That’s mean,” I pouted.

“If I have to tell you again, you’re going to see mean. Now march young lady.”

I made an ugly face as I walked away from him, but I went into the bathroom.

Mark’s POV

I collapsed on the couch, watching her leave the living room. Dr. Finnegan had warned me. El couldn’t keep up her perfect little girl act forever, and when she cracked, she was going to be very difficult.

Well, maybe I had nipped it in the bud.

That thought vanished as she came back out of the bathroom, the frown still on her face.

I smiled and tried to pretend I didn’t notice her foul mood, “Come ‘ere Princess. I had a long day. I need to cuddle.”

“I don’t want you to touch me,” she said, settling herself back with her blocks.

“El, you don’t have to cuddle if you need some space, but you know better than to be rude with Daddy,” I chided her.

She didn’t say anything, feigning interest in her blocks.

“Eleanor, I expect an apology please,” I kept my voice even, acting.

“Sorry,” she spat out.

“You can go wait in time out now,” I waited for a minute, but she didn’t move. “Eleanor, if I have to get up to help you, you’re getting a spanking.”

She sighed loudly. “This is stupid,” she complained , but stood up and walked to the corner. I watched her sit there with her arms folded across her chest.

After five minutes, her hands were at her side. At the ten minute mark, she was starting to fidget.

“Stay still Eleanor,” I ordered quietly.

She sat up straight and still for another five minutes, then she started talking.

“Daddy?” her voice was really quiet, and I could hear her trying not to cry.

“You know you’re supposed to be quiet in time out,” I reminded her.

“Daddy, I’m sorry I was rude,” she continued, sniffling a little now.

“Thank you for apologizing Baby.”

She turned to walk over to the couch, and I snapped my fingers, “I didn’t tell you that you could come out yet. Go on,” I gestured for her to turn back around.

“But I ‘pologized,” she protested.

“You did, and if you hadn’t been crabby when I told you to go to time out, I’d be letting you go now. You’re going to stay there and think about what you’re supposed to do when Daddy tells you something.”

She turned back to the corner and sat silently. I could tell that she was crying now, and I only made it five minutes before I called her over to me. 

She was sniffly, and there were tear tracks down her cheeks. Standing in front of me, she stared at the ground.

“El, why were you in time out?”

“Because I was naughty,” she mumbled.

“What did you do that was naughty?” I asked her patiently.

“I had a bad tone. And then I sighed and talked back to you,” she sounded about 3 years old.

“That’s right. What do you say Princess?”

“I already did,” she looked at me now, her face screwed up in confusion.

“I’d like to hear it again please. And this time, I’d like it to be because you’re genuinely sorry, not because you want out of time out.”

“I was really sorry earlier Daddy,” she argued.

“Do you need to go back to time out Eleanor? Because we can do that if you need some more time to think about what kind of behavior I expect.”

She shook her head no, “I’m sorry I was crabby.”

“Thank you Princess.” 

She settled herself back down onto the floor and went back to playing with her blocks. Her shoulders were tense, and I could tell something was bothering her.

“Come here Princess,” I asked her.

“Why?”

“Because I told you to. Now please,” I kept my voice casual as I spoke to her.

She came over, sucking on her lower lip and trying to keep her facial expressions neutral.

I grabbed her hand and tugged her down with me on the couch. “I said I didn’t want to cuddle Daddy,” she said, trying to wriggle away.

I kept hold of her hand, frowning. There was ink on it, and she hadn’t used her markers since that afternoon. I lifted it up to my nose and sniffed. “You didn’t wash your hands, did you Baby?”

“I did,” her voice was just a little bit higher than normal.

“Did you? Because we have candy cane soap in the bathroom. You picked it out. Your hands don’t smell like candy canes.”

“I washed them at the other sink?” she tried to edge away from me.

“The kitchen sink? Because the soap there smells fruity. Your hands smell like the crap liquid soap they keep in bathrooms in public places. I’m going to ask you again, did you wash your hands?”

She looked down at her hands, and then shook her head slowly, “No sir,” she said quietly.

“I didn’t think so. So, now, we’re going to go and wash your hands, and then we’re going to wash those naughty lies out of your mouth out as well.” I stood up, still holding onto her and began walking into the bathroom.

“No Daddy,” she tried to pull away, “You don’t have to. I’m sorry I fibbed.”

“I’m happy to hear you’re already sorry,” I told her, wrapping my free arm around her waist and guiding her into the bathroom, “But you know what happens to fibbers in this house. I know exactly what to do with naughty little girls; you need to behave yourself because if we have any more naughtiness tonight, you’re going to be in trouble. Understand?”

“Yes. But Daddy,” we had reached the bathroom, and she grabbed the door trying to keep me from going through, “We don’t have to do this. I’m sorry I didn’t tell the truth. I didn’t mean it.”

“We are going to do this,” I pried her hands away from the door and then moved her so that I could pin her body between me and the sink, “Now stop fighting me please, or we’re going to move on to the other methods I have for dealing with disobedient little girls.”

She stilled at that, whining a little, and I opened the medicine cabinet to pull out the bar of soap we reserved specifically for that purpose. Despite El’s insistence on having scented soaps all over the house, I’d found that plain old Ivory was the best for this particular punishment. I cut up each bar into quarters, and we always kept one in the bathroom downstairs and another upstairs.

“Open up Princess. Let’s get this over with.”

She whimpered and pushed her face into my shoulder, “No Daddy. I’m really really sorry already. I swear.”

“One,” I was done playing around. She needed to see where the line was; it was too much for her to not know what was going to happen.

“No Daddy,” she begged pathetically, “I’m sorry already. I promise. I’ll be goooooood.”

“Two.”

She sobbed, but unburied her face and opened her mouth obediently. 

“Thank you Baby,” I said gently, putting the bar of soap into her mouth and rubbing it around. Once I’d coated every surface quite thoroughly, I moved her again so that she was sitting down, “Bite down please,” I instructed her quietly.

She cried more, but she bit into the soap. I lifted my wrist to check the time, and I tried to focus on the seconds ticking by instead of the sound of her crying. I managed to make it three minutes. By that time, she had soap and drool dripping from her mouth, and she was crying pretty hard.

“Okay. All done, Let’s rinse,” I took the soap away and handed her a glass of water. She gratefully swished and spit repeatedly. I finally took the glass away, “That’s enough. Do you want to take a bath next, or should we eat some dinner?”

She leaned against me and shrugged, “I don’t care Daddy,” she said quietly.

“Alright. I think that we should have bath time first. We’ll get you all cleaned up, including these hands. How’s that sound?”

“K,” she whispered, following me upstairs to our bathroom. 

She remained near silent in the tub, doing what I asked but not volunteering any information.

“You want your toys Princess? We have your funnels and the egg beater thing,” I offered her the basket of toys. She picked up the egg beater and fiddled with it for a minute.

“You want to tell Daddy what’s bothering you sweets? You know I want to help you fix it,” I pushed her wet hair off of her face.

“Just cranky Daddy,” she said.

“Do you think making pizza would make you less crabby Baby? Daddy doesn’t feel like cooking dinner by himself,” I made a face at her; making pizza was one of her favorite things to do regardless of what age she was feeling.

She nodded at that, smiling at me, “Do we have spinach Daddy?”

“We do. If we’re going to make pizza though Baby, you need to get out of the bath. You done playing yet Princess?”

“Uh huh. Do we have any pop Daddy?” she tilted her head, smiling beguilingly.

I nodded at her, helping her stand up and step out of the tub. I dried her off quickly, and then walked into the bedroom. “Do you want your princess jammies?” I held out the pants and tee shirt with unicorns and princesses on them.

She nodded, holding still as I helped her dress. Then I brushed her hair and braided it. “Why don’t you bring Stella with you?” I suggested, plucking the hippo from the pillows where she’d spent the day.

El accepted her with a hug and kiss to Stella’s snout. Then, taking my hand, we went downstairs and made dinner together.

We managed to make it through dinner preparations and most of the meal before she started testing again. She knew the rule about pop; she only got one glass with dinner, and then she had to switch to water or milk. When she went to the fridge and got another can, I reminded her.

“Ah ah ah Princess. You already had your ginger ale for the night. Water or milk?”

“I want pop Daddy. It’s just one more,” she opened the can up and took a sip, staring at me.

El’s POV

It’s just a freaking can of pop. There isn’t even any caffeine in it. Daddy was staring at me as I drank, and then he stood up and started toward me.

I hurriedly put the can on the counter, “You’re right Daddy. Water sounds refreshing,” I told him, trying to keep the butcher block between us.

Daddy’s legs are a lot longer than mine, and unless I actively run while he’s just walking, he always catches me. And I’ve learned not to run. 

He grabbed my hand and pulled me over to him, “I see that time out and getting your mouth washed out with soap didn’t do much to cure that naughty streak tonight.”

“No Daddy,” I interrupted him, “I’m not being naughty. I just wasn’t thinking.”

“So now,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard me, “You’re getting a spanking.”

“No Daddy,” I wiggled and pulled, trying to get away from him, “I’m sorry. I want water. I love water!”

He settled snagged the wooden spatula from the jar next to the stove, and then he walked me over to the dining room table. Settling himself down on one of the chairs, he pulled me between his knees and then tugged down my shorts. Leaving me half-dressed in front of him, he began questioning me.

“Why are you getting a spanking?”

“Because I had one sip of ginger ale Daddy. Just one.”

“And why did I tell you no more pop?”

“Because I’d already had some,” I admitted.

“That’s right. And what’s the rule about pop?”

“Only one a day. But Daddy, it was just a sip. I don’t need a spanking.”

“I think you do; come here,” he settled me across his lap. I hated when he sat on a regular chair to spank me, the blood rushed to my head, and I felt unstable trying to balance. I knew he wouldn’t let me fall, but I hated the feeling still.

He didn’t bother to lecture anymore, simply and efficiently spanking me, first with his hand, and then with the spoon. I cried hard, wiggling and begging him to stop, but he wouldn’t. It felt like the spanking went on forever, and I was nearly hysterical by the time he finally finished.

I slowly stopped crying as he rubbed my back, and I finally felt calm enough to try to stand up. He hugged me a bit, and then he pulled my pajama bottoms back up. I winced as the fabric scraped over my sore bottom.

“Hurts?” he asked sympathetically.

I nodded pathetically as I teared up again. 

“Are you full Princess? Or do you want to eat some more pizza?”

“I’m not hungry,” I whispered, subdued.

“Alright then. Why don’t you go sit at the counter; I’m going to clean up from dinner.”

“I don’t want to sit down; I’m sore,” I told him.

“That’s because you got a spanking because you acted naughty. Go on now,” he gave me a gentle pat, but it hurt.

With a little yelping noise, I walked over to the counter and gingerly settled myself on a stool. I sat staring forward glumly, and he began picking up plates. I wanted to cry again, but I managed to stop myself.

Mark’s POV

I watched her as I cleaned up. Catching her eye, I smiled at her, “You doing okay?”

She nodded, her chin still a little trembly.

“I think that we need new art. What do you think?”

She didn’t respond, so I grabbed her favorite coloring book and slid it across the counter to her along with her sparkly crayons. “Will you color some butterflies for me Baby?”

She frowned, but then nodded a little, seemingly relieved to have something to focus on.

“How was your day Princess?” I asked her, keeping half of my attention on her as I cleaned up.

“Okay,” she mumbled.

“Are you missing Mia? I bet she’ll be back on Monday, Princess; she should be feeling better by then.”

She shrugged at that.

“Pardon?”

She sighed a little, but then looked up, “I don’t care Daddy. It doesn’t matter. I won’t have to go there forever anyway; I’m going to get better soon, and then I’ll go back to work. Mia’s never going to get better. She told me, she’s already been in day treatment and in-patient.”

“Maybe this time she’ll get better.”

She focused back on her picture, shaking her head no. “Nope,” she told me, “She won’t. But don’t worry; I will.”

I turned around, leaning on the counter so that I was at the same level, “Baby, look at me,” I waited until she looked up again, “You will,” I started carefully, “And Mia will too. It’s not like it’s one or the other. And I’m not worried that you won’t; I love you no matter what.”

“You’re wrong,” she told me simply, looking away again.

I sighed, standing up and resolving to talk about this with Dr. Finnegan. El had loved spending time with Mia; Lisa and I had even talked about having Mia over for a play date. I liked Mia; she kept El talking at least, and she’d been great after the issues with Karen. I turned back to the sink and finished the dishes. 

Once I’d cleaned everything up, I went and sat next to El at the counter. “That’s beautiful Baby,” I told her, cupping her cheek.

She pulled away, “I don’t like the colors,” she said shortly. “Can I get up now?”

“Please may I get up,” I corrected her, “What would you like to do?”

“Please may I get up?”

“You may. Shall we cuddle for a while?”

“I want to play with my blocks,” she told me.

I followed her into the living room, and then stretched full-length on the carpeting beside her as she began building.

“What are you making?”

“A castle. For Stella.”

“Do you mind if I help?”

She looked at me for a moment, and then handed me a block, “It needs to be big Daddy, with high walls.”

We built in silence for a while. Dr. Finnegan had told me early on that most people were uncomfortable with silence, and that if I tried being quiet with El, she was likely to talk just to fill the space.

Unfortunately for me, El had grown up in a family that loved to talk; she was more comfortable than most people with quiet because she had so rarely experienced it. However, she was still human. She managed to last about 15 minutes most of the time, less if she was upset. Today was no exception.

“Mia had ECT,” she told me.

“Yeah? What’s ECT?” I knew the rules, even as I asked, I kept my focus on the blocks and continued working on our castle.

“Electroconvulsive therapy. Shock treatments.”

“I didn’t know that still happened,” I said.

“Yeah. For depression. Sometimes for mania but mostly catatonia and severe depression.”

I didn’t say anything to that, waiting for her to continue to where she was going.

It took her a few minutes, but she talked a little bit more, “It’s for intransigent depression. I’m getting better now though Daddy. I worked really hard this week.”

I broke my rules, glancing at her quickly. Her face was paler than usual, and she was tense. “I know you’re working hard Baby,” I told her, reaching a hand out and laying it on hers.”

“I did everything that Dr. Finnegan wanted me to this week; pretty soon, I won’t even have to go to treatment. I’m trying really hard to be good.”

“Baby, look at me,” I rolled onto my side so that I could make eye contact, “Treatment doesn’t have anything to do with being good. You’re always good. Treatment is so you feel better.”

“I do though Daddy. Dr. Finnegan doesn’t believe me, but I am. I’m not sad anymore,” she looked convinced as she told me that.

I looked at our building, trying to decide what to say. Dr. Finnegan had told me that I needed to challenge El when she insisted that she was fine. Making a decision, I chose my words carefully, “I think that you’re sad; I think that you’re angry too.”

She shook her head at that, sitting up straight with a wince and opening her mouth to argue her case. I forced myself to remain quiet as she tried to convince me, “I’m fine Daddy. I’m not angry. It’s a bad thing, but being angry doesn’t change anything.”

“It doesn’t change anything. But neither does pretending that everything’s fine.”

She looked down stubbornly, focusing on the blocks in front of us.

“You need to pick up your blocks now Baby,” I told her, calmly gathering some of them to put away.

“I’m not done Daddy. And it’s only 8:00; it’s not bedtime yet.”

“I know that.” I kept cleaning, and she reluctantly did so as well.

Once the blocks were put away, I stood up. “Come on Princess. I want you to do something for me please.”

She trailed behind me, Stella in her arms, and we walked to the study. Grabbing a blank book that I’d bought, I set it on the desk along with a pen. “Sit,” I instructed, pulling out the chair.

She sat, giving me a look. 

“I want you to write about Daniel,” I said simply, handing her the pen. 

“Why?” she tried to stand up, but I slid the chair in so she couldn’t move.

“Because I’m the Daddy, and I said so,” I walked to the couch and settled myself with a book. “Go ahead now Baby. You need to start please.”

She glared at me, crossing her arms. I watched her for a moment, and then talked again.

“You can pout all you want Princess, but you’ll do the writing. Remember the first time I gave you lines? You’ll do what I tell you to or you’ll go to time out. I don’t think you want to sit on that sore bottom.”

“I already am,” she pointed out.

“You are. And you’re going to do the writing I ask you to. So either do it now, or go sit in time out and then come back to sit and do this writing. Your choice,” I pretended to read.

She glared for another moment, and then picked up the pen. She wrote for maybe fifteen minutes before she slammed the pen down. “There isn’t any point to this stupid exercise.”

“Thank you for your opinion,” I didn’t look up from my book. When I didn’t hear her start writing, I told her, “Time out or write Baby. Go ahead and make a decision.”

“You’re so infuriating,” she said angrily, but she started writing again.

I listened to the pen scratching across the paper for a while. When it sounded like she was going to keep going for a while, I actually got to read. 

I stopped when I heard sniffling. Looking at her over the top of my book, I watched her wipe her face with the back of one of her hands. Then she went back to writing. I smiled, and forced myself to read rather than rescuing her.

El’s POV

I wrote. At first, I was furious at Daddy, and most of what I wrote was about how angry he was making me. After a while though, Daniel started to bleed through.

He wasn’t going to let me up until I did what he told me, and so I focused on writing. I tried to write about the clinical side of child sex offenders, and I managed to do that pretty well for a while. However, it’s not really my area of expertise, and I ran out of stuff to say. After a bit, I started writing more about me. About Daniel. About what had happened, and how it had changed me. 

And as I wrote more, I cried. 

I cried for me, and I cried for Daniel too. I hated him; he’d hurt me. And someone had done the same to him. And someone had done the same to that person.

Back and back and back, an endless chain of victims and perpetrators. They hurt him, so he hurt me. And he’d probably hurt other kids because I hadn’t told.

I finally stopped writing when Daddy came to stand behind me and pluck the pen out of my hand. Leaning down, he hugged me and rested his chin on my head. He stood like that for a moment as I cried soundlessly, tears dripping onto the open notebook.

I was the one to break the silence, “I can’t say it out loud,” I told him quietly.

“That’s okay.”

I don’t know that he knew what I was talking about, so I continued. “It’s too hard. But,” I paused, biting my lip and forcing myself to pick up the book and hand it to him, “You can read it. But I don’t want to be here when you do. And I don’t want to talk about it. And just you, not Dr. Finnegan.”

“Fair enough,” he murmured, kissing me on the top of my head and taking the book. I watched as he slipped it on top of the bookshelf. 

He squatted down next to the chair and spun me so that I was facing him. Taking my face in his hands, he began talking to me, “Do you know how much I love you?”

I nodded, “I just don’t know why,” I admitted.

He stood up at that, hauling me off the chair and up onto his hip. “We can’t forget Stella,” he told me, grabbing the hippo to hand to me. As he walked to the kitchen, he tickled my back. “I love you for lots of reasons Princess,” he told me.

I didn’t respond, resting my head on his shoulder. I was tired now, and I was surprised to see that I’d only been writing for a little over half an hour.

“Do you want a snack?” he asked me.

I shook my head, my thumb migrating to my mouth.

“Thirsty? I think some water would be a good idea,” he managed to fill one of my bottles with icy cold water without putting me down, and then he handed it to me.

It seemed like too much work to bring it to my mouth, and I held it in one hand as he walked around the house checking doors and windows.

“I don’t know about you Baby, but I’m exhausted,” he told me. “I want to go upstairs and cuddle in bed. How does that sound?”

“K Daddy,” I told him.

He held my bottle for me once we were settled into bed, and he smiled at me. “My big girl. You’re doing such hard work for me. You know that I’m proud of you? You’re being so brave.”

I shook my head, “Not brave,” I whispered. “I’m scared all the time Daddy.”

“That’s because what you’re doing is scary. Being brave doesn’t mean you aren’t afraid. It means that you do stuff even if it scares you.”

I looked away, not wanting to make eye contact. “It was a bad thing Daddy,” I said quietly.

“I know. I wish it hadn’t happened to you.”

“But,” I trailed off, trying to figure out what I wanted to say, “But if it hadn’t, I wouldn’t be me. It’s confusing.”

He stayed quiet, rubbing my arm and waiting me out.

“Like, maybe the reason that I do a good job with my kids is because I know what they’ve been through a little bit. And that’s good. But probably the reason that I got really scared and threw the coffee beans in the air when you came into the kitchen last week and scared me is that it happened too.”

“It would be nice if you could just take the good stuff and leave the rest,” he said sympathetically.

“But I can’t. It’s all mixed together now.”

He nodded at that.

“I’m sleepy Daddy,” I told him finally, tired of talking about it for the day. He turned out the light, and I fell asleep. At 9:30 on a Friday night.

The weekend was quiet. He wouldn’t let me out of my sight, and he made me sit down and write every evening before bed. 

“I don’t understand why you’re making me do it,” I told him.

“You don’t need to understand. You just need to do what you’re told.”

I didn’t like it, but I did it. I wrote Saturday and Sunday, and by the time I went to the program on Monday, I didn’t care what I had to do. I never wanted to have to spend my weekend writing about it again. I didn’t like being spanked and then ignored while I had to write and Daddy got to read.

When I went into therapy Monday, I settled myself comfortably onto the couch, crossing my legs up and looking at Dr. Finnegan.

She stared at me expectantly, and I broke the silence. “What are we doing today?”

“What would you like to do?”

“Oh no,” I told her, “I want to get better. You tell me what to do; I’m ready.”

She looked a little surprised, but she went with it.

Mark’s POV

The first Monday she came home where she had been really invested in working again, she fell asleep in the car. I got her up to eat dinner, but she slept 13 hours with only the one interruption to eat.

When I woke her up the next morning, we had to hurry through our routine. Normally, she bathed at night, but now we both had to shower. Deciding to save time and keep an eye on her, I had her shower with me.

This did not go over well. “No Daddy,” she stomped her foot when I tried to wash her hair, “Let me do it.”

I swatted her; she knows she’s not supposed to stomp or kick. El yelped then, the sound loud and clearly displeased.

“That hurts. It’s way worse when I’m wet,” she told me, her voice pretty angry.

“Then behave yourself when we’re in water Princess,” I didn’t bother making eye contact, simply shifting her so that she was under the spray and raising my hands to her head to finish washing her hair.

She crossed her arms across her chest, pouting; I decided to ignore it. We only had so much time to do battle on any given morning, and I wasn’t going to waste time arguing about her bad attitude when we hadn’t even eaten.

She tried to get out once I’d finished washing her, and I had to snag her arm. “No Princess. Wait for me,” I instructed, trying to shampoo myself and grab the bar of soap simultaneously. 

“I want to get dressed,” she protested.

I stopped what I was doing, lowering my gaze so that I could Look at her. “I want us to get through this morning without you earning yourself a sore bottom. I’ll get you dressed in a few minutes; you hold your horses before I decide to experiment with how the bath brush would feel on your wet bottom.” I stared at her for a moment, checking to make sure that she knew I was serious, and then I finished bathing.

“Alright, all done,” I turned off the shower and stepped out. Grabbing a fluffy towel, I turned to wrap it around her; she jerked away from me, nearly falling because of the wet tile.

That was enough of that. I could put up with early morning crankiness, but I wasn’t making an ER trip. I took hold of her arm in one hand and grabbed the bath brush in the other. Pulling her up to lean over the leg that I had propped on the edge of the tub, I brought the brush down a dozen times in quick succession.

It definitely made more of an impression; she shrieked like a stepped on cat, and squirmed so wildly I almost lost my grip on her. I readjusted her and then used the brush a few more times, “Stop wiggling,” I lectured her.

“It hurts it hurts it hurts,” she squealed, moving frantically.

“It does,” I agreed, “Are you ready to lose the attitude this morning? Or do you want me to keep going?”

“No more Daddy,” she told me, trying to tug away to stand up.

I swatted her again, “And you’re going to behave yourself? Because you’re not listening right now; I told you to stop wiggling.”

“Sorry. I’ll be gooooooooooooood,” she was clearly making an effort to hold still.

I helped her stand back up and handed her the brush. “Hang it back up,” I watched her take it with distaste and put it back where it belonged, and then I helped her out of the tub and dried her off.

She shrieked and tried to pull away again when I rubbed the towel across her backside and thighs, “I told you to hold still,” I lectured, popping her a few times with my hand.

“But Daddy,” she whined, “That hurts. You’re being too rough.”

I stopped what I was doing and looked up at her, “Why does your bottom hurt El?” I asked.

She gave me a mutinous look, “Because I got spanked,” she managed to say.

“That’s right. And why did you get spanked?”

“Because,” she stopped, clearly struggling with what I wanted her to say. I waited.

“Because I was naughty,” she finally ground out.

“That’s right. If you don’t want to have a sore bottom, then you need to behave yourself. You know how it works,” I concluded the lecture by finishing drying her off. 

She made a harrumphing noise, and I sent her off to sit in the chair in our room while I quickly dried myself and shaved.

I helped El dress, and we ate a quick breakfast before we left for treatment. As we got closer, she got quieter, just cuddling with Stella and staring out the window.

El’s POV

Daddy’s mean. It’s perfectly normal to be a little bit crabby in the morning, and he completely overreacted with that bath brush. I shifted a little bit in the car, trying to find a less achy position for myself with minimal success.

“You have treatment until 5:30. What should we do tonight?” Daddy’s voice cut through my thoughts.

“I don’t care,” I fiddled with Stella’s ears.

“You should think about it then Baby. Maybe play with your toys? We could build with your blocks some more, or it’s been a while since we played with beads.”

Daddy pulled into the parking lot, and we walked into treatment. “Behave yourself Princess,” he told me, giving me a hug and a kiss.

Mia grabbed my hand, and we went to group therapy. I couldn’t stop shifting in my chair; the bath brush had hurt more than usual that morning, and the feeling it left behind was making an impression.

I was working hard in individual sessions with Dr. Finnegan, and I actually liked the new person they’d hired for art therapy. Patty was my mom’s age, and I found her very soothing. But I still wasn’t talking in group therapy.

I had talked to Daddy about it. I think maybe he had talked to Dr. Finnegan because she didn’t push me to participate. I just didn’t see the point. 

Group therapy sessions seemed to be about dealing with our partners, and the way that our relationships were hard. And I liked what I had. It was scary and hard at times, but I trusted Daddy. Or at least, I trusted him more than anybody else I’d ever known.

And I wasn’t going to talk to strangers who were complaining about bedtimes and curfews and whether television should be monitored. Even as I chafed at those restrictions, I found them soothing. It didn’t seem right to complain to other people about them; it felt disrespectful, not to mention disingenuous. 

Daddy said it was okay; he thought it was a good idea for me to talk to other people about what we were doing. Daddy thought that I was too isolated, but I didn’t need anybody else. I had friends. I had family. I had him. And whenever I wasn’t sure what I was doing, I had my laptop and WiFi access.

Individual therapy was different. I didn’t like what we did, but at my better moments, I knew it was necessary. Even if I didn’t want to get better, I didn’t want Daddy to have to take care of me. It made him sad when I said that, but then he told me he’d live with it for now.

I had something that had been bothering me since I’d talked with Daddy about it. The conflict about what had happened to me, I didn’t know how to process it really. And I knew that Dr. Finnegan wouldn’t tell Daddy what I’d told her. So I had space to talk, and the freedom to say the stuff that I didn’t see how Daddy could forgive. 

“I don’t like what happened to me,” I started.

She didn’t say anything, simply nodding and waiting.

“But I don’t know that I wish it hadn’t,” I stopped, staring shamefaced at my hands.

She waited for a moment, and then said, “Go on El. I’m sure you have a reason, and I’d like to hear it.”

“I tried to tell Daddy?” I looked at her, not sure of how to phrase this. “I tried, but he wishes it didn’t. And I don’t know...” I trailed off.

“Don’t worry about what Daddy thinks; he’s not here right now. So, I’m just worried about what you think,” Dr. Finnegan’s voice was quiet.

“If it hadn’t happened then I would be different,” every word came out distinct, with a pause between.

“That’s true,” she acknowledged.

“I tried to tell Daddy that. Because I don’t know how I would be different. I was so little.” I looked at Dr. Finnegan. My eyes were full of tears, but I smiled at her, “You know, my mom says that I was a happy little kid. Carefree. Calm. And I wonder how much of that Daniel took from me, and how much would have just changed,” I was still speaking haltingly as I tried to express the thoughts that I barely allowed myself to think.

Dr. Finnegan leaned forward, resting her hands on her knees. “You lost things because of the abuse,” she said.

“Uh huh. Mark loves me.”

Dr. Finnegan’s POV

I tried not to show that I was startled. It was a non sequitur, but I should have come to expect it from El.

“He does,” I said, nodding, “He loves you a lot.” 

“Maybe he wouldn’t. If it hadn’t happened.”

“What makes you think that?” 

“Because. It’s part of who I am. I wouldn’t be me if it hadn’t happened,” she was back to avoiding eye contact.

“That sounds complicated,” I sympathized.

“I can’t wish that it didn’t happen to me. Not really. Because it’s who I am now.”

“This experience is part of who you are,” I corrected gently.

El’s POV

I was circling the thing I needed to say, but I was afraid to say it. I never had before; I barely let myself think it.

Swallowing hard, I looked at Dr. Finnegan, “You can’t tell people what I say in here,” I told her.

“That’s right. Not without imminent risk of harm. You’re familiar with the therapy rules.”

“Even if what I say is messed up? Because sometimes things are different because of Daddy, but I don’t want anyone else to ever know I said this.”

“Go ahead El. Your secrets are safe here.”

I looked up and to the side and shrugged, “What if this is the only thing that makes me special?” I asked. My face was flaming, and I felt sick to my stomach.

“What do you mean?” Dr. Finnegan’s voice was gentle.

“It didn’t happen to everybody. It makes me different. Sometimes I think that maybe if it hadn’t happened...” I trailed off, not sure how to explain. 

“If it hadn’t happened,” she prompted.

“I wouldn’t be special anymore. Maybe the only reason Mark loves me is because I’m messed up. Maybe it’s the only reason that I’m good at my job. Maybe everything good about me is because of what Daniel did, and if he hadn’t, I’d be all bad. I always act like the bad stuff is because of what happened, but maybe I was bad to begin with. Maybe that’s why Daniel picked me. Maybe the parts of me that are good is because of what he did. Because he always said he was just trying to make me be good. Maybe he did.” 

I could hear myself babbling, but I couldn’t stop. If I didn’t get this all out now, I’d never be able to work the courage up to say it again. I hugged my knees, pressing my face to them so that I didn’t have to look at Dr. Finnegan. I didn’t want to see her disgust with me.

And how could she feel anything else? What kind of person doesn’t want this stuff to not have happened? I was a freak. This was why I never told anybody, why I barely even allowed myself to think it. Because if people knew, they would hate me.

I hated me.

I felt the couch dipping beside me, and Dr. Finnegan laid a hand on my shoulder. I tensed, waiting for her to tell me to get out and stop wasting her time. She couldn’t fix what was broken with me.

“El, I want you to listen to me. It is very common for adult survivors to be conflicted about the abuse. This is something that you lived with for a very long time; it’s okay that you’re unsure of how you’re feeling. As far as this being the only thing that makes you special, that isn’t true.”

I peeked up at her, then averted my eyes quickly. “I’m bad,” I whispered. “There’s something wrong with me.”

“No sweetheart,” Dr. Finnegan didn’t sound angry as she talked, “There’s nothing wrong with you. There’s something wrong with what happened to you; that’s all.”

I stayed still, not sure of what to say. I’d told my big secret; Dr. Finnegan knew. She said it was okay, but she had to be lying. It wasn’t okay. I shouldn’t feel like this. 

“Don’t tell him, ‘kay?” I finally said.

“I’m not going to tell him El. This is your secret. Maybe eventually, you’ll want to, but that’s your decision,” Dr. Finnegan reassured me.

I nodded. 

“Here’s the other thing that I need you to hear. What happened to you was not your fault. You did not cause it. I don’t care what Daniel said to you; it was not your fault. Daniel told you things that weren’t true. You weren’t bad. You aren’t bad. Do you understand?”

“I was though,” I finally whispered. “My mom was always mad at me. I made Michael do stuff; I was supposed to make sure he behaved, but I never did.”

“No El,” she shook her head, “You weren’t bad. You weren’t responsible for the abuse.”

I stayed silent. I heard what she was saying, but I didn’t believe her. It had to have been my fault. He only hurt me.

She waited for a few minutes, and then began talking again, “We have about half an hour before our session is over. Do you want to keep talking, or are you ready to do something else?”

I shrugged.

“Maybe we should do something easy; you’ve already done some hard work today. Does that sound okay to you?”

I nodded, and slowly unfolded myself. Dr. Finnegan led me over to the table, and she pulled out paper and crayons. 

I was happy to color the rest of the time. I couldn’t talk with her about what I’d said. Not yet.

Mark’s POV

El was subdued when I picked her up from treatment. Dr. Finnegan had called me around 1:00 to let me know that El had thrown up. She didn’t want me to come and pick El up; she said they’d just had a rough session.

When I got El home, she didn’t want to talk, but she didn’t want to be left alone. We spent the night with her following me around the house.

Finally, fed up after tripping over her for the third time, I picked El up and placed her on the counter. “How’s your tummy feeling Princess?” I asked. I wanted to tell her to go and entertain herself, but I felt guilty.

She shrugged, leaning forward to rest against me.

“Do you think you’re up to helping me make dinner?”

She nodded slowly.

I smiled at her, tugging the end of her braid. “That’s good then. I thought we should have those chicken breasts you like.”

“The baked ones?” she asked quietly.

“Uh huh. They take about 40 minutes though, can you wait that long for dinner Baby?”

She nodded again. “Please can we have noodles with them Daddy?” she asked tentatively. 

“I think that can be arranged. Now, should we have brussel sprouts or green beans?” 

I managed to get her talking and laughing as we cooked dinner, and she seemed much more relaxed by the time we sat down to eat.

“What would you like to do after dinner Princess?” I asked her.

“Blocks Daddy. We never finished Stella’s castle before.” 

She was voracious, eating everything on her plate (a rarity). She was also fidgeting, moving around and laughing with me.

“Now I know your tummy’s feeling better,” I teased her, as she asked for more noodles.

She giggled, eating quickly, and I made a mental note to make this more often. Anything that got her to eat a home cooked meal without complaints should be repeated.

“Do we have pudding Daddy?” she asked after she finished dinner.

“I think we have mix,” I told her.

She made puppy dog eyes at me. “Pudding would probably make my tummy just perfect,” she said.

“Take your plate to the sink Baby,” I instructed. “We can make pudding, but you have to help.”

She eagerly assisted me in cleaning up the kitchen, and then she sat on the counter and helped me mix up the chocolate pudding.

“Thirty minutes Baby,” I told her, sliding it into the fridge. “Shall we go build while we wait?”

She nodded, and then dragged me by the hand into the living room. Settling onto the floor, we played with her blocks until the timer she’d insisted on setting went off.

“Pudding,” she said, pulling my hand again so that I would follow her into the kitchen. “Do we have strawberries Daddy?”

“No, but we have raspberries,” I told her, pulling the carton out along with the pudding.

“I’d like some raspberries with my pudding please,” she told me.

She giggled and chattered as we ate our dessert. I hadn’t seen her in this good of a mood in weeks. We played with her blocks for a little while longer, and then she put her toys away and went up to her bath without any argument.

She became progressively quieter as the night wore on, and by the time I got her into bed, she was clingy again, falling asleep on top of me.

El’s POV

When I woke up the next morning, I was a little stiff from being on top of Daddy all night, but I was warm. When I began squirming, Daddy woke up.

“Did you have a good night?” he asked, his voice sleep-roughened.

I shrugged, “Just a little bit of nightmares Daddy. Not lots.”

“What about?” his hands were back to rubbing my back, and I stretched my toes, somehow comfortable in spite of being stiff.

“Monsters.” I shuddered, thinking of the hands that reached for me in my sleep.

“They’re not real,” he said gently.

I nodded, not wanting to talk about it.

“Time to get up,” he told me, slipping out from underneath me. “What would you like for breakfast?”

Daddy kept me moving through my morning routine and toward treatment. I didn’t want to go. It was too hard.

I cried when we got there again, and that was embarrassing. One step forward and five steps back and everybody still saw what a baby I was. I ended up opting for the Quiet Room over group therapy. I needed a break.

Dr. Finnegan wouldn’t leave me alone. She left an orderly in with me, and I sat with my back to the corner, rocking myself, until it was time for my individual session.

“I don’t want to work today,” I told Dr. Finnegan calmly. 

She surprised me by agreeing, and we spent my session making necklaces with the beads instead. In fact, I decided to use my individual therapy to do craft projects for several days, rather than talking about Daniel. And Michael. And my mother. It was too much, and I wanted to do something small and non-threatening.

Dr. Finnegan could tell that I was avoiding talking about much of anything, and so she slowly began talking while we worked instead. 

“I know what you’re doing. You want me relaxed so I talk. You aren’t tricking me,” I told her, not bothering to look up from my search for another pale pink bead.

“That’s true. It’s a very astute observation, but I know we’ve talked about this before. I’m not tricking you; I’m trying to help you find something else to focus on because it can make talking about the harder things easier.”

Sighing, I put down the beads and gave her my full attention, “What do you want me to say? Because I’m not telling my parents. Not ever.”

Dr. Finnegan’s POV

Well, that came out of nowhere. Which meant it had to be coming from somewhere. I decided to follow the rabbit trail and see where it lead us.

“Why not?”

El’s face darkened, and she told me, “Because I don’t want to, and you can’t make me. Daddy said I don’t ever have to if I don’t want to. And he’s the boss. Not you.”

“I didn’t say I was going to make you. I’d like to know why you don’t want to.”

She didn’t like that response, and she refused to answer, back to staring at her project. I gave her a few minutes before prodding.

“I’d like an answer please.”

“They don’t need to know.”

“No. Not for them. I think for you, it may be helpful. So why don’t you want them to?

El’s POV

“I just can’t tell them,” I told Dr. Finnegan.

“Can you explain why?”

“You know, the entire time I was growing up, I got into trouble? And I always just accepted that. Except now, that I’m an adult, I listen to other people’s stories about me...” I trailed off.

Dr. Finnegan nodded, waiting for me to continue.

“I was a good kid. Well liked. Well behaved. Honor roll student. Polite.”

“So how did you get into trouble?”

“My parents used to get so mad at me; they would tell my brother and I to stop fighting. And it’s only been in the last 18 months or so that I’ve realized something. We weren’t fighting. He was following me and doing things. He’d hit me or steal my toys, and then I’d get into trouble for getting upset about it.”

Dr. Finnegan didn’t say anything. I could tell she wanted me to continue, and I sighed, frustrated.

“I’ve spent my entire life thinking that I was bad. And maybe my parents genuinely thought that I was bad. Since I spent so much time getting yelled at for my brother hitting me, I just assumed that everything was my fault.”

“And so you...” Dr. Finnegan trailed off, waiting for me to fill in the blanks.

“And so I assumed that I was only getting what I deserved with Daniel. I was split between not wanting to tell my parents because I didn’t want them to know because I figured it was my fault, and not wanting to tell them because they already knew and they weren’t stopping it because I deserved it.”

“It sounds like you’re upset with your parents,” Dr. Finnegan suggested.

“I-,” I stopped, thinking for a minute, “I get that they didn’t know. Now. I understand that mentally. But emotionally? They were supposed to protect me. And I look at all the ways they failed to protect me. They had walked in on something similar with Daniel’s brother and I months before the abuse started. My Dad told him not to do it again, but nobody ever talked about it with me. We all just pretended like it hadn’t happened. I convinced myself it hadn’t happened. Between that and the fact that I was constantly being blamed because my brother was mean to me...I just assumed that I was only getting what I deserved.”

“It’s okay to be angry with them,” Dr. Finnegan told me gently.

“No it’s not,” I told her, tearing up. “It’s not okay. Because if I let myself get angry, they will never believe it happened. The only possible way I have to tell them about it and have them believe me is if I’m completely emotionally neutral. I can never blame them. The minute they hear anything that implicates them, then it will be overly-emotional-El who doesn’t remember things right.”

“Is it important that they believe you?” she asked me.

“Yes. I know it shouldn’t be, but I want external validation. I want someone else to acknowledge that what happened to me was awful and shouldn’t have happened. And if my own mother can’t look at me and recognize that I was a victim, what hope do I have with anyone else?” I looked down at my hands in my lap, and continued, “If she thinks it was my fault, then it must have been.”

I stopped then. I didn’t want to talk about this anymore. I felt twitchy, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how bad it was to tell. I wasn’t supposed to talk about this stuff. You never blame Mom and Dad. Those were the rules. 

“This is not a secret,” Dr. Finnegan said patiently. “What happened to you should not be a secret. And however badly you think that your parents will respond, I think that talking with someone in your family would help. Knowing that you’ve been able to tell someone who knew you and recognizes that you didn’t deserve it would be good.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I told her, looking at her face. “I’m not ready.”

Dr. Finnegan let it go, and we finished our session chatting about the horrible injustice that was Daddy forcing me to write about this stuff when I already had to come to treatment.

Dr. Finnegan walked me down to art therapy, but I didn’t stay there long. I told staff I needed to go to the bathroom; I just needed some time to myself.

Locked in the bathroom, I tugged up my shirtsleeve. Daddy hadn’t cut my nails in about a week, and they were long enough now. Considering my nails for a minute, I looked at the pristine skin. It would feel so good to do it.

With a sigh, I pulled my sleeve down. Maybe later. Right now, I was going to go to art therapy. If I still wanted to cut myself later, then I would. For now, I was going to draw.


End file.
